


ghosts that we knew

by oforamuse



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, It's sad but not too bad, Laura Milkovich faked her death, Laura isn't dead, M/M, Mentions of Death, Post Season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oforamuse/pseuds/oforamuse
Summary: for the first time in mickey's life, shit is moving forward - he's married, he's got a steady job and his dad just kicked the bucket. then, someone impossible turns up and everything he thought he knew is turned upside down.she doesn’t look like anything mickey has been led to believe about ghosts.because the woman in front of mickey is alive.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Mickey Milkovich & Sandy Milkovich, Mickey Milkovich & The Milkoviches
Comments: 41
Kudos: 366





	ghosts that we knew

**Author's Note:**

> hello all! long time no see, sorry about that. i've been dealing with some anxieties surrounding my writing but i've been working on this beast since march so... hopefully you guys enjoy it. 
> 
> a big thank you to [michelle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086414/chapters/55229047) who has spent the last few months dealing with me moaning over this, dropping it, then picking it back up after weeks of nothing, i love you so much! (you all better be reading miles between us!)
> 
> title take from [ghosts that we knew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1eZLCxvpDI) by mumford and sons

_"Ghosts that we knew made us black and all blue,_

_But we'll live a long life,_

_And the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view,_

_And we'll live a long life…”_

* * *

The day Terry dies, Mickey cries for hours. 

They don’t fall out in broken sobs or tears of loss, but there’s no stopping the steady stream of a tear or two that rolls down his cheeks from his red, knuckle rubbed eyes. 

Tears of joy. Tears of what could’ve been. Tears of what wasn’t. 

Terry long since lost the privilege of Mickey’s devastation. 

They throw a huge breakfast in celebration - pancakes, eggs, fresh juice, the lot. Mickey even cracks open a beer at exactly 3 minutes past 9 in the morning because fuck it, he’s celebrating. 

_Thank you for the late wedding present_ , _Pops_. _Just what they fuckin’ wanted._

Terry Milkovich out of the picture for _good_. 

It’s everything Mickey has been hoping for, wishing for, begging for since he was somewhere around the age of nine years old. 

The detective who called said it was a job that went awry - someone didn’t pay someone and _voila_ , the man responsible for years and years of Mickey’s trauma, drops down dead. 

He’s never chugged a beer that’s tasted so good. 

And though Mickey feels a level of joy that he’s only ever felt on his fuckin’ wedding day, the light chested, feeling like he can fly kinda shit- 

It’s almost comical. Biblical, even. 

That despite all this, despite feeling so over the fuckin’ moon he might as well be in outta fuckin’ space _-_ it does nothing to stop the overwhelming gray cloud that eclipses and oppresses him shortly after. 

It’s been years since Terry’s influence had any sway over Mickey and his future, but it’s one thing to live like you’re free and it’s another thing to truly _feel_ it. 

Feel the chains lift, the shadow retreat, the cage unlock. 

He lies in bed that night, Ian’s arms tight around him, with tears in his eyes. 

He cries for everything he lost over the years, the days and hours he spent agonising over his father and the tight, vice-like grip he had around his livelihood. He cries for his teenage years, lost and alone, he cries for his childhood, dirty and neglected, he cries for his siblings, beaten and abused. 

He cries for his mother. 

A mother who never really got to be a mother because of the man she married when she was too young to know better and by the time she did, it was too late to get out.

He does not cry for his father. 

He gives himself one day - one evening, barely - to wreck himself to the point of exhaustion and then that’s that, he’s done. He’s not going to a funeral - he doesn’t even know if anyone is throwing one, he doubts it. Mickey knows he’s not alone in thinking the bastard can lay out in the open and rot for the birds. He doesn’t care, but he lets himself have _one_ day. 

His dad has been dead to him for a long, long time. 

But he gets a day. 

A day to mourn everything that was taken from him, stolen in the night like a twisted fairytale he wouldn't escape from for years to come. He didn’t get a knight in shining armour storming to his rescue, he got _his_ bumbling ginger idiot and a whole lot of baggage to deal with, but he made it through. _They_ made it through. 

It’s been difficult - so fucking difficult - but they made it though. 

Ian wakes him up the next morning with a cup of black coffee and a gentle hand stroking slowly through his hair. He leans into the touch ever so, letting the sun bask on the side of his face for a moment and for the first time in his life, he’s safe. 

Mickey’s been out of prison for months, but he finally, _finally_ , feels free. 

* * *

The line clicks on, connected. 

_“...”_

_“...”_

_“Uh. Mandy?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“He’s gone.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“He’s dead.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“We’re-”_

The line clicks off, disconnected. 

* * *

Sandy takes him out for a beer and greasy food in quiet celebration a few days later. They sit in The Alibi for hours, their bottles sticking to the cheap, gummy table top and hot fries burning their fingers. They’re surrounded by people they know but stay out of the way, tucked into a small booth to the side. Ian’s meeting them in a bit, but for now, it’s just him and Sandy.

“To the bastard getting what he deserves.” Sandy says, raising her bottle high in offering. Her smile is grim and Mickey understands the feeling, he feels it too. 

Nevertheless, the corners of Mickey’s mouth turn up, because if there’s anything that’s deserving of a cheers - it’s this. 

“Fuck it. I’ll drink to that.” 

Their bottles clink together, glass on glass, it’s their own private firework display and they nod at one another. Celebration. They both feel it. Terry can’t touch them now. 

He’ll never be able to touch them again.

* * *

The month after Terry’s death passes quickly.

Ian fills his days working frequently as an EMT - it took a couple months of hard convincing his old crew, as well as a lot of back and forth conversations with his P.O, to allow him to come back to the same station - but a few strings were pulled and things worked out. Once talked around, Sue and the team were happy to welcome him back - throwing Ian a giant, ridiculous party with balloons, beer and a cookie cake at the station. Ian introduced him around as _my husband_ \- the words never growing tiresome - and Mickey made an effort to _not_ resort to hanging around the back with a beer. Ian grinned all night, so any discomfort was worth it. 

Ian’s been working hard and picking up extra hours when he can - there’s an anxiety to his days now, the _need_ to be better. Mickey knows he’s trying to make a point - to please everyone and prove that he’s reliable after everything that happened - but he can also tell in his heavy lidded eyes and his adopted perpetual yawn, that it’s wearing him out slightly. He’d be more concerned, but those yawns almost always turn into smiles and the guy is cheerier than Mickey’s seen him in a long time. It’s difficult, but Mickey’s got to trust that Ian will come to him if the exhaustion gets too much and anything feels out of balance. 

He looks hot in the uniform too, so he’s all for it. 

Mickey’s been apprenticing at a mechanic workshop downtown a few days a week, it’s something that Larry managed to swing for him through a couple of connections and surprisingly he’s enjoying it. It’s a strange change from breaking into rich people’s cars to fixing them, but he’s working through it, keeping his hands busy and making some sort of income.

A steady, legal income, for once.

There are days when he comes home all sweaty and covered in grease after a long shift and Ian doesn’t hesitate to press him up against the wall before he’s had the chance to shower or even lose his dirty overalls. Honestly, it happens more often than not - so again, Mickey’s all for it and he knows Ian is too. 

Mickey doesn’t hear from Mandy again. Silence between the two of them isn’t particularly unusual and though Ian doesn’t get a call either, neither of them sweat it. She’ll turn up eventually. She always does. He and Mandy have spoken a grand total of possibly three times since he last saw her, and that’s being generous if he thinks about it hard enough. There is no loss of sleep over their little contact and he knows she isn’t worrying about it either. They’re used to keeping each other at arm’s length, they’ve done it the majority of their adult lives. 

Other than Sandy for obvious reasons, Iggy’s the only family member that tries to contact him. He turns up at the Gallagher doorstep a few days after the news drops with a 6 pack of beer and a joint. They smoke and drink on the porch, and Iggy slurs out an apology for not being there for the wedding, or being there for Mickey at all, really, over the last couple years. 

“Dad shit, and all that.” He says, and Mickey doesn’t really care, but he nods anyway. 

All that shit. It’s over and done. 

The rest of the days go by without another mention of Terry, the Milkovich house or anything to do with the fucked up crap Mickey and the rest of his siblings had been subjected to at the hands of his father. Things are normal, life is _normal_ and Mickey happily slips into it with ease. They go to work, they come home, they kiss, they fuck, they take care of the kids, they take care of each other. 

They visit Debs every now and then at the women’s correctional centre just outside of the city where she’s being held for the month or so left of her sentence. Julia’s mom’s lawyers had come down _hard_ , but Debbie still managed to only bag a handful of months plus community service. Franny sits on Mickey’s knee sometimes, or Ian’s, and they hold the phone to the side of her face so she can babble away nonsensically to her mother. 

During those few visits - and there are only a few - Mickey tries not to think about the amount of times he sat on his mother’s knee, speaking to his father through a pane of glass not dissimilar to Debbie’s - his father who didn’t give a shit whether he saw his kid or not. 

He tries, also, not to think about the time he was on the other side of that glass with his kid staring at him, wide eyed and unaware, and Mickey knowing that no amount of time or energy could make him _feel_ what he should be feeling towards the little guy.

A father who didn’t give a shit whether he saw his kid or not. 

By that point in his life though, he didn’t care, didn’t care about anything. The sun had gone out in his life and everything was a dark, damp gray. Ian had stopped showing up, Mickey eventually stopped waiting for him to show up and thus, the visits from his ex-wife and child stopped too. 

There wasn’t an ounce of sorrow or longing for the loss of his ex-wife’s company - there probably _should’ve_ been, Mickey knows that, but there wasn’t. Everything else was clouded over by the marrow deep ache in his bones for the man with his heart, for Ian and the life he thought he once was going to have forever. 

Forever.

But now?

It didn’t come easy - nothing ever came easy for them, but, in his Milkovich way of dealing with things, it’s water under the bridge. 

_Husband and husband._

He gets to have to have that life forever. 

_They_ get to have that life forever. 

They get to have their domestic days where they step around one another in the kitchen, making some recipe Ian reads out loud from his phone, or making cookies or baking a pie with Franny. The shit no one ever did with him. The days Mickey pretends to grumble, but doesn’t actually mind about getting flour on his jeans, his face, his hair.

He gets kisses pressed to the curve of his neck as he washes dishes. Lazy mornings with tangled legs and a slow, leisurely wake up fuck. Ian’s clothes mixing in with his, his medication, socks, and underwear. 

Furniture is moved and rearranged, replaced and redecorated. 

Making the Gallagher house their _home_. 

He plays video games with Carl and stays up until the sun rises watching shitty pirated scary movies against Ian’s chest, buttery popcorn tossed into their mouths as Liam dozes off in the arm chair. 

Sandy drops by once a week or so with a couple beers and a bag full of take-out. Chinese, sushi, burritos, pizza - they sit on the porch in the summer evening’s heat, the three of them enjoying each other’s company and eating straight out of the cartons. 

Sandy’s _good_. It’s good. 

Strange, but nice - he guesses, to have a family member he can rely on for the first time in his life. Sandy wasn’t present for a huge amount during his childhood - holidays and long weekends, sometimes - so, building _that_ relationship - a permanent and consistent one - has been an interesting learning curve for the both of them. 

He and Ian spend a handful of evenings babysitting Fred, giving Lip and Tami some peace and quiet or the opportunity to go out and do _fun adult things_ \- like date nights, or Tami having the chance to get _wasted_ with her sisters. Lip getting the chance to _breathe_ and work on his stuff from AA. 

Fred’s a relatively easy kid to handle and he usually ends up falling asleep pretty early on when they’re watching him, so more often than not, they spend the majority of the time putting something shitty on the tv and feeling each other up on the sofa - Ian pulling away and straining to hear whenever there’s the slightest noise coming from his nephew’s direction. 

They fall into a routine and Mickey Milkovich, a kid who once thought he’d probably die at the hands of his father by the age of 30, falls into _life_. 

Tonight, however, it’s a Friday evening and the Gallagher house is... unusually quiet. Lip and Tami are over at Brad’s with the kid for dinner - he knew that. Carl and Liam are.. _somewhere,_ Kev and Veronica’s maybe? He doesn’t remember either of them mentioning anything at breakfast - that’s the type of life he leads now, conversations about their days with his family at _breakfast._ They haven’t seen Frank for the last 2 weeks, so there’s no doubt in Mickey’s mind that _he’ll_ pop up soon if Mickey’s particularly unlucky this evening. 

Mickey chucks a look around the living room and it’s a little weird, now that he thinks about it, that he’s not seen or heard from anyone for the last couple of hours. He’s grown used to the constant stream of bullshit that comes with the territory of living at the Gallagher house - strangers coming and going as they please, the noise, the chaos, the constant thrum of energy.

As uncomfortable as it is for him to admit it, it’s comforting almost, to know that there is always _something_ going on here. 

An evening of peace? Sounds a little too good to be true. 

All in all though, living back with the Gallaghers isn’t so far removed from the house he grew up in. Except, the large difference between the Gallagher family home and the Milkovich House of Horrors is that the house he lives in now is a _home_. It’s mismatched and one knock away from falling apart, built tirelessly from Fiona’s, Lip’s and Ian’s efforts over the years, but a home nonetheless. 

There’s love in these walls. 

He’s never had a _home_ home before. 

The one he had the misfortune to be saddled with growing up was a convenient plot of four walls and a roof, any semblance of comfort and warmth shelled out, sold off and abandoned. 

There was no joy to be found. 

Terry made sure of that. 

Mickey has _joy_ in his life now. 

It makes his stomach warm and his bones infinitely lighter when he thinks about it. 

Which brings him to this evening. He’s sitting on the couch watching reruns of something on TV and Mickey Milkovich is happy, he’s _content_ and he’s wondering, a little less begrudgingly than those may think, where his _family_ is. 

Ian had come home an hour or so earlier, his body pent up with frustrated energy from a long day at work - one of his newer coworkers _sucks_ apparently and today was a rough one. He pressed a quick kiss to Mickey’s cheek and decidedly pulled on his sneakers, leaving to run it out with a few miles. 

The running reappeared a 6 months or so after he got his leg cast off - they can’t afford a physical therapist, so he’s easing himself back into it slowly, looking exercises up online and not over working his leg or pushing himself _too far_ in ways that he used to. Mickey feels like shit over the leg thing, hard not to. He doesn’t bring it up, best not to - he knows Ian would tell him to fuck off. Still feels like shit. 

The running made him apprehensive at first. The nervous, leg bouncing, chewing the inside of his mouth apprehensive, every time he watched Ian tie up his laces and leave. It reminded him too much of the last time Ian had fallen into the same routine. The early, manic mornings and his wide eyes over pictures of a sunrise at breakfast. 

But - Mickey’s been working hard giving him his space when it comes to Ian’s own shit, so he swallows down any fears and instead kisses him goodbye each time.

He’s not making that mistake again. 

They’re not making that mistake again. 

Ian trusts Mickey and Mickey trusts Ian - and tonight? Mickey’s looking forward to him getting home all sweaty and likely, a little horny too. 

Uncharacteristically - things for them have been moving pretty smoothly. Mickey doesn’t want to jinx it, but Ian had his meds adjusted the month before last after a couple of restless weeks and they’ve been taking it easy as he gets to grips with the difference. They haven’t seen any huge swings, so they’re counting it as a win right now.

Things, for the first time in Mickey’s life, are looking _up_ and thinking about it, thinking about his life _,_ makes something warm blossom in the middle of his chest. 

He _is_ bored tonight though, and as strange as it is to admit it, the Gallaghers can be fun - especially now that he’s officially part of them, the _family_. Mickey no longer has one foot in and one foot out, it’s bound by law and love, he’s a Gallagher. 

There are days when that thought makes his skin crawl and he feels like getting black out drunk. 

There are other days, like tonight apparently, where it makes everything feel just a little bit lighter. 

Like he belongs. Like he has somewhere to belong. 

Mickey checks the clock, his fingers itching for something to do and sighs when he realises Ian’s probably going to be gone for another 20 minutes or so - he usually likes to get at least 45 minutes under his belt and it’s barely been half that. He wipes his sticky fingers on his jean covered thighs and reaches forward for another handful of Cheetos. 

He’s halfway through entertaining a thought about how he’s gotta stop buying them - he eats way too fucking many and his stomach is a getting a little _too_ soft - when he’s interrupted by a loud thump against the wooden front door. 

It’s not quite a knock but not quite anything too threatening to put him on edge. 

There’s three more knocks, this time more distinct. 

He retracts his hand from the bag quickly, his head snapping towards the sound. 

Mickey curses, and wonders for a moment if he can pass it off and ignore it, pretending like no one’s home, but the decision’s made for him when he’s interrupted by _another_ knock. 

Persistent.

“Alright, _alright._ I’m coming.” He hollers, pulling himself off the couch with an irritated groan. 

Hopefully, he thinks, it’s just a delivery guy or something he can deal with quickly. Tami often orders stuff for Fred when she can - or it could also easily be Frank getting dropped off by the police once again, it happens regularly enough. One of those things about living with the Gallaghers - people come and go in a constant stream of _who the fuck are you,_ so who the fuck knows is ringing in their doorbell on a Friday evening. 

He _really_ fucking hopes it’s not a bible saleswoman or a group of those sorta Northside business fucks looking to prey and convert someone too poor or vulnerable to notice. They’ve been lurking around the neighbourhood more recently, ready to suck up everything about the Southside that makes it The Southside. 

He’s definitely not had nearly enough to drink to be dealing with that shit today. 

His hand reaches the door handle and he twists, pulling it open with little care. His face is a picture of disinterest - wanting nothing more than to get this over and done with so he can get back to enjoying his shitty, off brand Cheetos and the shitty sitcom he was watching to kill time, _thank you very much-_

It’s not a bible-sales woman. It’s not a Northside start-up looking for investors. It’s not fuckin’ Avon calling. 

He hears a sharp intake of breath and something shifts.

_“Mickey.”_

That voice. 

Tectonic plates slide against one another, the earth falls off its axis, and everything slows. 

Mickey stares, and stares, and stares, and stares. 

His brain doesn’t… his brain _can’t_ catch up quickly enough. It’s like when a computer goes into shut down - nothing is sending from the motherboard and there’s no way he can put two and two together, there’s _no_ comprehending the sight in front of him-

 _What the fuck_. 

Mickey blinks, squeezing his eyes shut and open again. He must be going fucking crazy, there is no way, there is no way, there is no _way-_

There is no _fucking_ way. 

A woman stands on the Gallagher's front porch ( _his_ porch, now - he reminds himself, because this is his house too), eyes wide and mouth gaping slightly. Her fist is raised to knock again but she’s frozen in motion, staring at him. 

Staring right through him. 

Staring right into him. 

Mickey takes a step back, the air in his lungs knocked out like someone’s punched him brutally in the stomach, and in a way, someone has. 

In a way, someone’s just hit him with a bus. 

In a way, his entire fucking _world_ has just been tipped upside down. 

She stares at him. 

It’s a ghost. 

He blinks again, and every single time he expects her to disappear when he reopens his eyes and they adjust back to reality, reassuring him that he’s not losing his _fucking_ mind.

But she doesn’t disappear. 

She’s still very much there. Solid.

Mickey brings a shaking hand up to his forehead and holy shit, holy _fuckin’_ shit, he’s losing his mind, he’s losing his fuckin’ mind. 

Out of desperation he looks out to the street but there’s no one in his eyesight, no neighbour bringing out their trash, no one else he can call out to, _hey you fuckin’ seein’ this?-_

There’s a ghost on his front porch, someone Mickey has known to be dead for practically a decade, and who the fuck knows, maybe he’s going to have to start taking Ian’s meds because _what the fuck_ is going on. 

He’s losing his _fuckin’_ mind. 

Mickey tries, quickly, to remember what he’s eaten that day, his head scrambling to track his past 24 hours. The shit he never thinks about. Has he drunk enough water? Sugar levels? Did Frank fuckin’ drug him, or else something else equally as ridiculous but entirely plausible? 

He stares at her, his hand moving from his forehead to the doorframe, it’s an ill attempt to steady himself as his world warps around him, distorted like a funhouse mirror. 

And yet everything is in place. 

Because he _knows_. He knows this isn’t a hallucination.

Her hair is wavy and longer than Mickey remembers, but familiar in a way he doesn’t want to. The dark colour is littered with gray strands, contrasting starkly like streaks of white paint. There are lines on her face that hadn’t been there before, little crinkles at the corner of her eyes and mouth from years and years of use. 

Years and years of use.

Except that’s impossible, because ghosts don’t age. 

A ghost's hair doesn’t go gray and their skin doesn’t loosen, they stay a permanent fixture of their last state on earth, frozen in time, stuck in one moment forever. They don’t have flushed cheeks from the cold or wet, their eyes don’t grow old, their chests don’t rise and fall with breath and yet, the woman in front of him presents a different story. 

She doesn’t look like anything Mickey has been led to believe about ghosts. 

Because the woman in front of Mickey is alive. 

“It’s… _me_ , Mikhailo.” 

Her voice is so quiet that the words may have well been whispered, but her tone and inflections are so _familiar_ that he hears it clear as day, and it cuts deep into his stomach. 

She steps forward, a small smile forming as she whispers, in awe almost.

“Oh my god _,_ oh my god _. You._ ”

Something vile lurches up his throat and the violent urge to vomit courses through him. He’s certain in that moment he’s gonna fucking spill chunks all over the porch. 

All over her. 

“It’s you.”

Tears pool in her pale blue eyes - _his_ pale blue eyes - and they’re getting glassier and glassier with every second as they search his face, rapidly passing over his frozen expression. 

“Please say something.”

Mickey doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t know how to say anything, he _can’t_ say anything. 

Someone might as well have just cut his tongue out of his throat because he’s lost all ability to fuckin’ speak. His tongue is tied by the _impossible_ and there is nothing coming out of his throat except heavy, rapid breath. 

There’s nothing but the sound of blood rushing in his ears. 

“Mickey,” She says, bringing her hands out in front of her. 

They shake with desperation and he steps back with a jerk. Her hands drop down to her sides and her face follows with disappointment. 

It’s so familiar, it’s all so familiar. 

She changes her expression, it’s something softer. Edging forward, “ _Mikhailo_...it’s me.”

He shakes his head, because no it’s not, it’s impossible and it’s _not._

“I know this is weird, I know,” Her face twists, she swallows and steps forward again. Her efforts to bridge the distance between them makes the cheetos in his stomach threaten to revisit with every inch she gets closer, “I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry.” 

He snaps his hands up in front of him, defences ready because if she _touches_ him- 

“What’s… going on? Mick?”

Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian.

His voice is confused and it cuts through awkwardly but as Mickey turns towards him, his shoulders drop down in automatic relief at the sight of him. 

His life. 

Thank _fuckin’_ God because Ian’s real, Ian’s real, Ian’s real and she’s a ghost. 

Ian stands at the bottom of the stairs, his headphones hang around his neck and a thin layer of sweat shines on his forehead. On any other day, Mickey wouldn’t waste any time pulling him into his arms and dragging him up to bed when he looks like that, but now? 

Now, he can’t move. He can’t do anything. 

Can’t do anything except silently scream. 

Ian locks onto Mickey’s eyes and gives him an eyebrow knitted, concerned look, something a little _‘what does this chick want?’,_ but Mickey’s too scrambled to throw anything coherent back. His face remains frozen in shock, his eyes wide, jaw slightly dropped. 

Nothing’s kicking into action. Motherboard shut down. 

Motherboard. 

Mother. 

Ian’s eyebrows pull together at the lack of response, and his expression switches to something more worried. 

“Mickey?” 

Ian steps forward, his foot hesitantly placed on the first step, his voice tinged with unease. 

The want to tell him it’s okay is nauseating. He wants to reassure him, wants him in his arms and _close._ The lie would be easy - but, it’s not okay, he can’t reassure him, can’t do _anything_. 

Ian looks at Mickey with worried eyes as he ascends and he puts on his best _customer service_ _voice_ \- the one Mickey hears him use on the phone or talking to old, nosy women in the grocery store. 

It’s polite, in a _what the fuck do you want_ , kinda way. 

“Uh, sorry, _Miss_? Can we help you?”

She doesn’t even look at him, her focus remaining directly on Mickey, burning into his skin. 

Mickey keeps his eyes trained on Ian until he reaches his side and tries again. 

“Miss? Can someone tell me what’s going-” 

“ _Mickey_.” 

Ian’s eyebrows shoot high up into his hairline at the fact she knows his name. Her words are desperate and her hands jump out to grab at him, Mickey smacks them down quickly. “Mickey, _please_ -”

Ian steps forward protectively, his chest puffed. 

“Hey, hey-”

Mickey wants to tell her to _back the fuck off and leave me the fuck alone-_

But he doesn’t say anything, he still can’t say a word. 

You shouldn’t talk to ghosts. 

“Mickey?” It’s Ian this time, and suddenly his hand comes down on his shoulder, pulling him back down to earth, he looks at him, his lower lip bitten with worry. “What’s going on?”

Mickey shakes his head and Ian looks between Mickey and the desperate woman standing in front, going back and forth a few times. Mickey can tell he’s not getting _it_ and wishes he could explain to him but he _can’t_. 

It’s not even clicking for him, how the fuck can it click for Ian. 

“Mickey, please,” She says, begging now, and she keeps her eyes trained intently on the spot between Mickey’s eyebrows. It’s something she always used to do, she never could hold eye contact for very long and it makes him feel sick. Suddenly he feels 5 years old, 11 years old and 26 years old all at the same time. 

He closes his eyes, he can’t look at her, he can’t look at _that_ face. Because that’s _his_ face. Mickey wants to _scream_ but she starts to back away, her footing unsteady, “This isn’t a good time. Of course, this isn’t a good time, I’ll come back-”

_“Don’t.”_

Finally, finally, finally. 

It stings his throat as it falls out, and she physically flinches. 

“Who are you?” Ian asks, his tone distressed and pitch creeping high, he turns back to Mickey. “Mick, who is _this_?”

Mickey wants to take him by the hand and drag him inside, he wants to shrug his shoulders and tell him _it’s nothing,_ it’s nothing, it’s nothing. 

But it’s not nothing. 

“This is my number- it’s got where I’m staying too,” She grabs Mickey’s hand and presses something into his palm. His fist closes around the piece of paper, screwing it into a ball reflexively before dropping it to the floor when his brain catches up, it burns. “Mickey, please call me. Please call me. _Please._ ” 

Her hands come up to her face, pressing into her eyes as she pleads and Mickey has to look away because it’s like looking in the fucking _mirror_ , he itches to copy her - the old habit kicking in from who he learnt it from. 

“Will someone tell me what the _fuck_ \- Mick, what is going on?” Ian presses, strained and Mickey can feel the worried restlessness rolling off him at his side. His voice is ragged and thin - Mickey knows Ian hates not knowing what’s going on - he’s a natural leader, he likes the control, but above all, he’s worried about Mickey. Mickey’s chest throbs an ache of helplessness, but he can’t do _anything_. 

Ian bends down and picks up the fallen paper, the woman turns to him, her expression unclear, then she looks back at Mickey. 

“Call me,” Her voice shakes as she reaches forward, the back of her hand stroking along Mickey’s cheek for a split second before he can dodge out of the way. It stings, blistering his skin, and he snaps his head back, sending himself bumping forcefully backwards into Ian’s shoulder. 

“Woah, _woah_ ,” Ian says, his hands gripping his biceps and steadying him. His head shoots up towards the _stranger_ , his tone angrier than before, all walls of polite pretences down as he bites out, “What do you want? What do you want?” 

“I’m sorry.”

She looks at them both, her wet gaze going from Mickey to Ian and back to Mickey before she screws her eyes up tight and a lone tear trickles down her flushed cheek. 

_You do not get to cry_ , Mickey wants to snap, _you do not get tears_. 

Ghosts cannot cry. 

She nods at the silence, and turns quickly, scurrying down the steps without looking back. Her shoulders rise and fall, and Mickey thinks perhaps she’s crying, but it doesn’t hang with him longer than a fleeting second because his head is throbbing and he feels like the earth is going to swallow him up whole. 

Ian’s hand falls down to Mickey’s side, wrapping his fingers around his wrist and Mickey sucks in a breath at the touch, the connection between them being the only thing keeping him standing upright. He needs it, he needs Ian. 

She. _Her_. 

The woman stops at a car parked opposite and gives them one more look before pulling the car door open and climbing into the driver’s seat. Mickey’s knees tremble but neither man moves as they watch her pull away and drive off down the street.

His head is screaming. His bones, his muscles, his veins are screaming. 

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-_

A sudden rush of adrenaline - or rage, is it rage? - courses through him and he turns, practically running back into the house, wanting to put as much distance between him and that front porch as possible. 

The door slams and Ian follows quickly behind, his voice anxious and he grabs at Mickey’s shoulders in an attempt to twist him to face him. A desperate act in search of some sort of clarity, a clarity Mickey knows he can’t offer. 

“Mick, who was that?”

He doesn’t answer, his tight throat, his racing heart, his aching bones making it impossible. In a moment of desperation, he clenches his fists and sends a foot flying out in a kick to the back of the sofa with a silent curse. 

A searing pain shoots up his leg and it _hurts_ , but it’s nothing compared to the way his chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. Ian yelps out, steadying him by the shoulders and pulling him away so he can’t do it again. 

“The fuck is going on?” Ian asks, and Mickey can tell he’s getting increasingly pissed off, being kept in the dark - they’ve been doing so _well_. His face twists as he looks at him desperately, “Who the fuck was that?”

Mickey tries to look at him, tries to meet his eyes, but it’s as though someone has plunged his entire world underwater and Ian’s voice is obscured, his vision hazy. A brick from a life he once lived sits on his chest and it weighs him down as he drowns, restricting his breathing as he chokes on the water filling his lungs. Everything’s tight and shallow and he can’t get a single shaky exhale out, there’s nothing coming, he’s drowning, down, down, down, and soon he’ll be at the bottom of the ocean floor. 

Maybe he’ll stay down there forever. 

“ _Mickey_.” Ian says, firmer than before. His voice pulls him back, dragging him up to the surface. 

A lifeline. 

Ian stares at him, his expression worried and questioning as his eyes search his face for something, for anything to grab a hold of. Ian’s hands come to the sides of his face, his fingers stroking the tips of his ears and Mickey can’t move, Ian holds him in place. 

His mind races. 

She. Her. 

_Him_. 

This is _Ian._ This is his husband, this is his _heart_ and he can trust him. 

Something releases inside of him, knowing he’s in Ian’s hold, that his hands on him are constant, they’re solid, they’re not going to change. They’re not going to leave for years then coming back, pretending nothing has happened.

They’re not going to die and come back to life. 

Be a ghost. 

He swallows. Ian’s fingers stroke his cheeks with his thumbs and he tries to steady his breathing, but he can’t and it falls out stilted through his teeth.

‘Mickey, who was that?’ Ian says softly, so, so softly. 

Mickey doesn’t want to say it out loud, he doesn’t want to acknowledge it, give it life and allow it to be _true._

He can’t give _her_ life because she’s supposed to be fucking _dead_. 

“Hey, hey. I’m here,” Ian says, pulling Mickey’s head close against his chest and it’s sweaty, and gross but he doesn’t mind. God, he doesn’t mind. He wants to bury himself in it, leave everything else behind, leave _that_ behind. Leave her. This is all he wants, this here. Ian sniffs, his voice shifts, “ _You’re makin’ me freak the fuck out, Mick-”_

“Mom.”

“What?”

“That was…” He twists himself out of Ian’s hold, comfort being replaced by a sudden, suffocating _need_ for space, and he steps back, dragging a shaking hand down his face. “That was my fuckin’ mom.”

* * *

“Mick c’mon, don’t be an asshole,” Ian says into the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. 

He’s frustrated but swallows, trying to keep his voice under some semblance of control. Trying, being the key word, because it’s fucking difficult when Mickey is making him lose his mind.

He adjusts his hold on Franny, who is balanced on his hip as he roots through the fridge for her milk. “I know things are fuckin’ crazy right now but let me know where you are- just, send me a text, okay?-”

“I’m worried about you.” He whispers letting his voice soften, then moves her on his hip and hangs up reluctantly. He looks at the blank screen and sighs, dropping the phone carelessly down on the counter. 

He runs his free hand through his hair, Mickey’s a big boy, he can handle himself. Ian knows this, but he’d trust it a lot more had Mickey not just spoken to his supposedly dead, but very much _alive_ , mother. 

God, it’s all so fucked up. 

Ian can’t wrap his head around it, he doesn’t even know what happened, but worrying about Mickey is causing a headache to form in the centre of his forehead. 

He’s always been told that Mickey’s mom had died when he was in juvie the first time round - she’d walked out on them a few weeks before without so much as a goodbye, apparently. 

Mandy had turned up at their doorstep with tears in her eyes and a baggie of weed and they smoked on an abandoned rooftop until the sun came up and things were soft around the edges. 

He wanted to go see Mickey in juvie at the time, check in if he was okay, but it was still at the point where he worried about overstepping and sending Mickey flying off the handle with every wrong move. He didn’t want to push too hard, didn’t want to ruin anything. 

Mickey never mentioned it when he got out of juvie and being already on shaky grounds to begin with and in his eagerness to appeal, he let it go. She was mentioned in passing every now and then, Mickey dropping her casually into conversation without a huge amount of warmth - much like he often did when talking about his family - and Ian had always felt it was best to let it slide and move on. 

And he did, or so they all thought. 

Which brings him back to the shit that happened earlier. 

Mickey had ducked out before Ian could properly pull himself together to protest, jacket gone, keys taken and the door slammed behind him. 

Ian’s first instinct was to run after him but was stopped by not wanting to overwhelm Mickey, he didn’t want to be the reason he snapped and _broke_. So at the time, he figured it would be best to let him blow off some steam and let him come back to him when he’s ready - give him the space that Ian so often needs too. 

So often _asks_ for. 

It’s been a journey together, proving that they can be independent from one another and Mickey’s been trying really hard not to be in Ian’s pocket about his whole meds thing - so it’s only _fair_ he gives him the same treatment. 

Even if it makes his bones ache and everything feel _wrong_. 

Franny had been asleep upstairs, he didn’t know where on earth Liam was and Carl hadn’t come home yet so he wasn’t feeling particularly confident about leaving the kid on her own. He wasn’t going to pull anything his parents would’ve, they wouldn’t have thought twice. 

It was the wrong idea, _clearly_ , to stay because that was two hours ago and now Ian’s kicking himself, forcing his fingers not to grab for the phone and call him back for the _5th_ time. 

_God_ , he’s going to kill him when he gets home. 

“You’re going to drink this,” He says to Franny, her young eyes observing him in sleepy adoration as he gently pulls her around his front. 

She doesn’t know what a shit show the world is. 

She doesn’t know what bomb has just been dropped. 

She doesn’t know about the aftermath they’ll have to deal with. 

The sudden jump from newlyweds to uncles slash makeshift parents when Debs got arrested was overwhelming at first, but Ian thinks they’ve adapted pretty well. 

It’s not exactly what he’d pictured for their post marital bliss - but really, when has anything ever worked out the way he pictured it? 

Mickey had grumbled at first, but they both know it’s not for forever, and Ian considers it a good practice run for their future (He’s still working on that one with Mick). Debbie’s getting out soon, she only got a few months overall, but it’s been… an experience being in the driving seat for the first time. 

Plus, seeing Mickey with kids makes his heart race in ways he’d never really got to consider before. Back with Yevgeny, years ago now, shit was hard and he knows now that Mickey was hurting every single time he looked at the kid. It’s nice now to see him interact with her without the stiff spine and curled fists. 

He brushes the hair out of Franny’s eyes as she sips, “Then you’re going to go back to sleep - _okay_?” 

She smiles, it’s toothy and innocent, and nuzzles her head into his shoulder. He knows she’s getting a bit old to be held this way but he can’t help craving the comfort and safety right now, it’s how he held Debbie, Carl and Liam. His anxieties are calmed by having her close. 

It centres him, steadies him. Knowing the people he loves are _okay_. 

He tries to lose himself in Franny as a distraction, but worry gnaws at him, deep in his stomach, and he wishes Mickey would answer his _fucking_ phone. He presses the home button, lighting up the screen, but the small hope of seeing some sort of notification is crushed quickly by the blank screen. 

“ _Fuck_.” 

“Bad word.”

He snorts, tapping the young girl on the nose and making her squeal. “Yeah, you’re right, Uncle Ian said a bad word, now it’s up to _fucking_ bed.”

Franny’s laugh lifts the heavy weight on Ian’s chest, even if it’s just for a moment, and he hoists her into the air, hands under her armpits as he spins her around. 

“Drink your milk,” He says, setting her down onto the counter, watching her closely as she holds the cup to her mouth with two small hands. “Don’t spill any.”

“Done!”

It’s around an hour or so later when Franny’s finally passed out again and Ian’s managed to convince himself to go to bed when Mickey slips into their bedroom, undressing quickly and climbing in behind him. Relief floods him, and Ian turns almost instantly, his arms coming to wrap around Mickey’s body, pulling him in close. Neither of them move to say anything and Ian lies there, listening to Mickey’s slow inhales and exhales, he’s here and he’s safe. 

He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe. 

He didn’t realise how fucking terrified he was. 

Mickey’s voice is quiet when he eventually speaks, whispered and low, “Didn’t mean to worry you.”

“You did.” Ian replies, moving a hand to the top of Mickey’s head and holding it there. 

There’s a sniff, it’s wet, and Ian pulls him in closer, his chest aching. He’d bury him under his skin if he could. Protect him from the fuckin’ world. 

What’s the point of dedicating his life to being an EMT if he can’t fuckin’ protect the one he loves the most? 

“Sorry.”

It’s a mumble. But it’s there. 

Ian presses a kiss to his hairline, leaving his lips against Mickey’s hair as he speaks, “I know,” He says gently, and he knows Mickey means it, “Where did you go?”

“Walked,”’ Mickey sniffs into his chest, his breath warm and close. He gulps, Ian feels it against his skin, “Went and saw my brothers.”

Ian sucks in a breath, “Really?” and Mickey nods. 

Apart from that encounter with Iggy, it’s been a long time since Mickey spoke to his brothers voluntarily, actively seeking them out. 

Any semblance of a sibling _got your back_ kind of relationship had been severed during his time in prison and later Mexico. 

“She’d gone to see them already. Figures…” 

Ian can feel him trembling, his tone bleak as he speaks, and he _hurts_ for the man in his arms, his love. 

“They told her where she could find me. Guess that’s how she came here...I just, I dunno…”

He sighs then continues with a hollow, empty chuckle. 

“She’s not even their _mom_ \- just mine and Mandy’s,” Ian’s always known this fact, but it’s said almost like Mickey needs to say it out loud for himself, to make sense of it all. “How can you just leave your fuckin’ kids like that?”

“I don’t know, Mick.”

If there’s something they both know well, it’s parental negligence. 

Mickey breathes out heavily, his breath warm against Ian’s naked skin, his face pressed close. Ian feels the dampness of tears and he wants them to sink into his skin, to rid Mickey of the anguish and _betrayal_ he’s feeling, to take it on himself. 

Ian’s eyes sting too. 

Mickey clears his throat, he’s vulnerable, more so Ian’s ever seen him, but he continues, “Terry fuckin’ told us she died and we all, just, believed him.”

“Your dad was a psychopath, you. You know that.”

Ian runs his fingers through Mickey’s hair, keeping his movements steady and gentle. Anything he can do to comfort him, anything, he’ll move fucking mountains if he has to. He feels it. It’s the feeling - the wanting and _needing_ to do anything for love, going to the ends of the fuckin’ earth for that _one_ person - the feeling that has been written about in language after language for thousands of years. 

The ancient, ancient act of protecting the one you love most. 

He waits, letting Mickey take his time and breathe. 

“Then why’d she fuckin’ leave us with him?”

Mickey’s voice breaks and Ian’s heart breaks too. 

* * *

That night Mickey dreams. 

He dreams of long brown hair, worn eyes and a small smile. 

He dreams of running through trees - it’s not a memory, he doesn’t think so at least - the laughter of his mother rings out through the branches, distorted almost, but clear enough. 

He’s young, 6 or 7 at the most, and childlike wonder surges through every pound of his feet against the forest floor. 

He’s screaming, laughing, having the fucking time of his _life._ His mother is there. It’s just love. 

So much innocent love. 

Mickey can’t make out what his mother is saying, but he knows he needs to follow her. 

Follow, follow, follow. 

He runs so fast, faster than he ever has done in all his _life._

Strangled cries. His mother is screaming. 

Then he’s falling. 

Down, down, down. 

Dreams turn into nightmares slowly, then suddenly, all at once. 

* * *

“He doin’ okay?”

Ian’s standing in the door of the bedroom he shares with Mickey, his back lent against the flattened accordion door, arms crossed in front of his torso. 

Anxiety runs through him like a hot, thrumming electrical current. 

He’s been watching Mickey sleep for the last 10 minutes or so - staring a little - but he can’t bring it in himself to move away. Mickey had slept so awfully last night, there was a lot of tossing and turning, restless breathing and wet, salty cheeks, so Ian can’t help but finally relish in him finding some peace. The rise and fall of his chest as Mickey breathes calms him. 

Ian looks over at Lip, who’s stopped in the hallway at the open door, and takes a deep breath and contemplates. Thinks. 

It’s not really… his dirty laundry to air. But he’s also at a loss, and it’s _Lip_ , so. 

“Uh-” Ian sighs, turning his body fully towards his brother. He swallows, keeping his voice low, “Some shit happened, fucked shit.”

Lip screws his eyebrows together, concerned, “What... kinda shit?”

 _“Fuck,”_ Ian mutters and pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment before letting the hand drag down his face and coming to rest against the door frame, “Mick’s mom. She, uh. She turned up last night.”

“What?” Lip says with a disbelieving chuckle and Ian watches his eyebrows slowly knit themselves together in a frown once he realises Ian is not joking around. His eyes flicker over to Mickey’s sleeping form, then back to Ian. “But I thought-” 

“Yeah.” Ian nods, and it hangs there heavily for a moment. 

Lip blows out a breath, “ _Shit._ ”

“I know,” Ian looks back at Lip, “It’s some... heavy shit.”

“That _is_ heavy,” Lip says, chewing on his bottom lip. He leans forward to look into the bedroom at Mickey once more, then pulls himself back, “Poor guy.”

“Yeah-”

“What’re you two mumblin’ about?” Mickey grunts from the bedroom, his voice raspy from lack of use. 

“Lemme know if I can do anything, okay?” Lip says, keeping his voice a low whisper, then squeezes his shoulder before continuing down the hall, leaving Ian to deal with the unknown and his sleepy, drained husband. 

Ian braces himself, attempts to smoothen his worried features and calm the tightness in his chest and walks slowly over to the bed. He climbs up onto the mattress and walks on his knees until he can place them on either side of Mickey’s body, seated himself gently on his lower abdomen. 

Mickey hums, a warm pleasant sound from the depth of his chest, and scoots himself back so his upper body is supported by his elbows. 

“Hey,” Ian says softly, bringing up a hand to rest gently on the side of Mickey’s face. “How you doing?” 

Mickey rubs at his eyes and looks at Ian suspiciously for a moment, then flops back down onto the pillow with a residing sigh. He grumbles, “Don’t do that.”

“What? I’m not doing anything-” 

“The fuckin’ sad face bullshit-” Mickey says, waving his hand with irate dismissal. 

“Mick-” Ian starts and Mickey interrupts with a low groan.

“M’ fine,” Mickey says with rolled eyes, pushing himself back up onto his elbows and looking at him plainly, then says with a defeated out breath, “ _Fuck_ \- what you want me to say? Shit’s all good - Mom’s back, let’s go out for a fuckin’ coffee-”

“You _know_ that’s not-” Ian begins to snap but stops and collects himself, then leans forward and kisses Mickey between the eyes. His lips sit there for a moment and the two of them breathe together. He whispers into Mickey’s skin, “I took the day off work.” 

Mickey’s eyes are closed when Ian pulls back and he mutters quietly, “Didn’t have to do that.” 

“I know,” Ian shrugs, then rolls off Mickey and shuffles himself so their sides are flushed against one another. He slides his hand down Mickey’s thigh and threads their fingers together. “They were cool with it. I wanted to.” 

“You’re an idiot,” 

He’s clearly exhausted, the lack of confidence in his usually so _assured_ husband’s voice grips Ian’s heart - though then to his own surprise, Mickey drops his head into the curve of Ian’s shoulder and presses a breathy mumble into Ian’s exposed skin. 

“Fucked up.” 

“I know,” Ian’s hand cradles the side of Mickey’s head, holding him in place. 

They sit in silence for a moment, listening to the late morning noises of the Gallagher house, the inevitable, heavy conversation hanging between them. 

Ian takes the plunge, his voice held nervously, hesitant. 

“You wanna talk about it?” 

Mickey snorts bitterly, it’s a wet splutter almost, against Ian’s skin. 

They’ve been trying to _talk_ more recently, but Ian knows Mickey’s answer before it even falls out. 

“ _Fuck_ no.” 

Ian nods acceptingly, fondly, his fingers finding the short hairs at the nape of Mickey’s neck to play with. They sit there in silence, Ian absent minded stroking through Mickey’s hair. The frayed nerves in his chest momentarily calmed with the knowing thought that he has Mickey. Mickey’s safe. His heart is safe. 

They’ll get through this. They always do. 

* * *

The line clicks on, connected. 

_“Mandy.”_

_“Wow, twice in six months. Must be some kind of record.”_

_“Mandy-”_

_“What do you want?”_

_“Mom.”_

_“Fuck are you talkin' about?”_

_“She’s…”_

_“What?”_

_“She’s alive.”_

_“What?”_

_“She’s alive. She’s… fuckin’ alive and she’s back.”_

The line clicks off, disconnected. 

* * *

His clenched fist hesitates at the motel room door, raised and waiting but not _ready_. 

Mickey doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready. 

When he knocks, it’s gonna open an entire pandora’s box of shit. 

So many lonely years of shit. 

The crumpled up note from his mother sat on the dresser in his and Ian’s room for a week, untouched and gathering dust. Mickey avoided looking at it whenever he entered, though neither he nor Ian moved to throw it away.

It made him feel like a pussy. Weak. Pathetic. The way his skin crawled every single time he threw on a new shirt or changed his underwear and the piece of paper stared at him, burning a hole into the wooden dresser top. 

He knew it was ridiculous - giving a piece of paper that type of _power_ , that type of hold - but the act of flattening it out and reading the information his mother had left for him felt greater than any weight he’d carried before. 

Because once he did that, then it was real. His mother, Laura Milkovich, being alive was _real_. 

Breathing, moving, blood-pumping-through-her-fucking-veins real. 

He floated through the rest of the week, and neither one of them broached the subject again, they both floated, really. They worked, they came home, they fucked. It’s been taxing on Ian, he can tell through his heavy, shoulder dropping sighs, and throughout the week Mickey often caught him staring out of the corner of his eye with a gentle, sad expression. Concerned. 

He doesn’t need to be pitied. 

Mickey Milkovich knows sorrow. 

On the 7th day, a week since his mother had turned up on their doorstep, he finally uncurled the paper and flattened it in his palm. He didn’t know what changed, what pushed him forward, but something did. 

There was a phone number and an address to a Super 8 motel. A day later, he finds himself outside said Super 8, staring at a door and his heart beating heavily in his chest. 

He thinks about Ian. He thinks about loving him, their life, their future. 

He knocks. 

“ _Mickey_.” 

Laura’s face is tired, there are dark rings under her eyes and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail with very little care, she looks weathered, but irrevocably like his _mom._

A smiles breaks on her face, suddenly brighter as she speaks, her tired eyes gleaming with _hope_ , almost- 

“You came- I knew you would, I knew-”

Hope makes everything so much harder. 

Especially when, once, he had so much hope for his mother. 

His stomach hurts when he bites, “The fuck is wrong with you?”

It’s the first thing that falls out of his mouth and he doesn’t know if it was a conscious thought or not, but he’s angry, he’s so, so angry. 

He didn’t realise how angry he was. 

Side splitting, burning veins, aching bones _angry_. 

Mickey steps past her, knocking into her shoulder as he does and moves right into the motel room. 

Then, he lets her fucking _have it_.

Everything that’s been building under the surface, simmering over years, bubbling for the last week, comes pouring out. 

Laura attempts, tone placating, “I know, Mickey. I know. Let me explain-”

“You turnin’ back up here-” He laughs sourly, “-actin’ all fuckin’ hunky dory? What did you think was going to happen? Think we were just going to pick up where we left off?”

Her voice is calm and steady. Like she hasn’t just walked back into their lives and turned everything upside down. 

“Mickey, I had to get out.” 

It makes him want to scream. Instead, he spits. 

“ _Bullshit_.” 

Laura’s face twists, her eyes welling up with threatening tears, almost as if she’s been on the edge of them all day, and Mickey is torn between wanting to wipe them away before they even fall - the way he used to as a kid - and his seething, boiling anger. 

His mother used to cry sometimes, after a bad fight with Terry or a long hard day, and he’d sit in her lap and wipe the tears off her cheeks, _mama don’t cry,_ he’d whisper, _i’ll catch your tears if you do_. 

He can’t do that now. He doesn’t want to do that now. 

She wasn’t there to catch his. 

“You _had_ to? Are you listenin’ to yourself?” His voice doesn’t raise, but can hear himself getting louder, louder, louder - his ribs _hurt_ from the way his heart is pounding, “What was so fuckin’ important to leave your kids, _mom_?”

The _mom_ is bitter. Bitter down to his bones. Bitter down to every single moment he needed her by his side but she. wasn’t. there. 

Laura flinches and the way her bottom lip quivers tells him that it lands exactly the way he wanted it to, it _hurts_. 

There's a deep part of him, that 6 or 7 year old kid - the kid that has so much pain ahead of him - that knows he should feel bad, hurting his mother, being the reason for her broken expression, but he doesn’t - there’s too much rage, too much to think about. He pushes forward, wading knee deep. 

“You left us here, you left your kids, your _fuckin’_ kids.”

“Mickey, please...” Laura tries, her voice wet, _so_ wet. Her eyes flicker towards the curtained window and then back to him, “Your dad. You. you don’t know what he was capable of.”

It stings like a slap to the face and Mickey sees _red_. Any anger that was boiling before was a mere simmer. This one bubbles up with throat, red hot and scalding. 

“Don’t.” 

He can’t fucking breathe, _get the fuck off him_ , “Don’t fuckin’ tell me I don’t know what he’s fuckin’ capable of.”

_Ride him until he likes it._

“Mickey-”

_You’re gonna fuckin’ marry her._

“Don’t.”

_Click. The safety of a handgun, inches from his temple._

“Please. I’m sorry.”

_Terry’s murderous expression as he launches himself at him from across the bar._

“Don’t tell me I don’t know what he’s capable of.”

_The gray smoke. Burning. The Bamboo Lotus up in flames._

“I’m sorry. I didn’t-”

“I know what he’s fuckin’ capable of. I fuckin’...that shit you left us to deal with,”’ He feels _wild_. Wild and angry. His curled fist itches to be slammed into the wall, but it’s all he can do to slam it down on the dresser to his left instead. “What about Mandy, _mom_? You knew Terry was a fuckin’ psychotic prick and you left us here.”

Tears are streaming down her face now, slow drips of sorrow, and Mickey’s chest aches as her hands reach forward towards him, shaking with desperation. 

“Don’t fuckin’ touch me.”

He backs away, his hands coming out defensively in front of him. 

_“Mickey_.”

“That guy you saw me with, the redhead?” His heart thumps, a _dum badum dum_ , against his rib cage. Ian centres him, Ian is true. “Yeah, that’s my _husband_. The ol’ ball and fuckin’ chain.”

The words spit out of him, too blindsided by the fuelling anger coursing through him to even begin to think about her reaction, and even though he’s long passed worrying what people think about him - he’s married for _fucks_ sake - it’s different when it’s family and he learnt that the hard way.

Even family he hasn’t seen in years. 

Even family he thought he’d never seen again. 

He laughs, it’s bitter and makes the bile in his stomach churn, “I’m sure you can imagine the fuckin’ picnic dad had when he found out his son was _gay_ , really - it was a party, sunshine and butterflies. He bought me a fuckin’ cake and everything. Walked me down the aisle.”

“Mickey,” She pleads weakly, stepping around the bed to move closer but he backs up, pressing himself up against the door. He needs the distance between them because he doesn’t know what fuck he’s going to do if she gets too close. She tries to smile, but it’s weathered. “I’m happy for you, I am that’s-”

“ _No.”_ He brings a hand up to his lips, swiping, his cheeks are wet and all he can see is _red_. His voice is low and serious, because this is it, isn’t it? This is the shit he had to deal with because of his father, because of her, because of the fucked up shitty life they decided to drop him into, “It wasn’t a fuckin’ picnic, he beat the living _shit_ out of me. He beat the shit out of Ian, he fuckin’ burnt down our _wedding_ venue-”

Her face is wet and red too, and it reminds him so much of his childhood. Broken.

“I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t.”

Mickey can feel his insides screaming, his bones, his veins, his blood all _screaming_. His throat feels like it’s on fire, but he needs it out. He needs everything out. 

“My fuckin’ father beat the living shit out of me, and you weren’t there.”

“I wanted to be, believe me, _please-”_

“You weren’t there when he fuckin’ touched Mandy, when he broke both Iggy’s wrists or what about when he fuckin’ made me-”

He stops himself with a full body shudder. 

Because he can’t. 

He can’t. He can’t. He can’t dig that up, because if he thinks about it too hard, if he allows those feelings to overflow, he may literally drown in it and he’s already struggling to breathe.

It’s been so many fucking years, so much has passed since then, but that day still _burns_. It’s easy to pretend he doesn’t think about it often, life is fucking _good_ now - but the phantom slap of the gun smacking against his face, Ian bloody, beaten and broken, _Svetlana._.. it’s all tattooed into his skin like the ink on his knuckles. 

“You protected yourself. You didn’t protect us.”

Laura’s face cracks with her knees buckling beneath her and she falls back to sit onto the bed. Her head hangs in her hands and Mickey has to force himself to stay in his place, keeping his feet firmly planted. 

She suddenly looks so _small_ and it strikes Mickey that she’s where he must’ve gotten it from, the need to curl in on himself when shit gets _too much._ Keeping it internal. 

He doesn’t speak - can’t speak, really - but watches her shoulders rise and fall with racked, ugly sobs. 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, how long she cries, how long it takes for his hands to stop shaking. 

Mickey doesn’t know why he stays, watching her, but he does. 

_Mama, don’t cry. I’ll catch your tears if you do._

After a while, she breathes out audible, exhausted and spent, and runs her hands down her face. “I’m _sorry_ ,” Swallow, a whisper, “I don’t know how many times I can say it.”

He looks at her and sees himself. 

He sees himself and it hurts. 

“Not enough.” 

It falls out in a heavy, gasping breath like he’s just run a marathon and the adrenaline pumps through his veins. 

“I’m sorry.”

He laughs wetly, darkly. “Keep your _I’m sorry._ What does that even mean to you?”

He’s exhausted, he’s so exhausted. 

Laura’s wet eyes plead. His mother’s eyes plead. 

“I know. I know it will never change anything-”

“No,” He stops. Breathes. Centres himself. “It won’t fuckin’ change.”

* * *

There were many days during Mickey’s childhood where he’d come home from school to an empty house. 

Mandy would usually leave him at the school gates to go and hang out with her friends, because she, unlike Mickey, always had people around her to distract herself with. None of his brothers bothered to stick around - they had better things to do than babysit when they were barely older than kids themselves. They had friends too. 

Unlike Mickey, who lived through his childhood, teenage days in a permanent state of _alone._

Until, well, _I want the gun back, Mickey._

But before then. Long before Ian stitched himself into Mickey’s skin, soul to soul, heart to heart, Mickey’s childhood years were that of a life of solitary. 

The rest of the Milkoviches would argue that as a Milkovich you’re never alone, because being a Milkovich means camaraderie and brothers in arms. It means carrying a family name through hell and through fire. 

It means you’re lonely but you’re never _alone_. 

It means a shadow you can’t shake until it eventually consumes you. 

Swallows you. 

He’d spend hours by himself in the empty rooms, colouring or building shit out of random things, amusing himself when there was nothing else to do. He’d build forts and lay on his back staring at the ceiling by himself, scattering his dreams and imagined worlds against the pale, nicotine stained paint. He learnt quickly that tearing them down before anyone else came home was safer, saving himself the ridicule. Saving himself a fist to the shirt as he’s dragged down the hall and cursed at, _pansy ass games._

When he’d get hungry, he’d climb up onto the kitchen counter by dragging over a chair from the table and reach up high for the peanut butter and make himself a sandwich or eat the end of a stale bag of chips someone had shoved down the side of the sofa. 

Sometimes though, there wasn’t any peanut butter. There wasn’t any bread, there wasn’t any chips. 

Sometimes Mickey would come home to an empty house, an empty fridge and a stomach that would remain empty for hours until someone finally came home with a bag of take out or KFC. 

Sometimes the rooms would get dark, his stomach would rumble, and he’d bury himself deep under his covers before he heard the first key turn in the lock. 

Other times though, he’d come home to his mother stretched out on the sofa - sometimes asleep, sometimes not. He’d climb into her lap and she would pull him close in her thin, pin pricked arms, pressed against her chest. 

On some days, her eyes would be worn and tired - red from crying or substance abuse, he was too young to tell the difference or even _know_ the extent behind his mother’s heavy lidded eyes, all he knew was that she looked _sad_. 

Sadder than any of the other moms he’d see around the Southside. 

Sadder than Lisa Hillroy’s mother who’d pick her up every single day from school with a juice box and a snack. Sadder than Harvey Green’s mother who lived 4 houses over who always played catch with him out in the front yard. Sadder than Mrs Hennigen, his 5th grade teacher, who had a baby and brought it in to show the class and apparently she was _glowing_ , according to Mrs Flitcher, the receptionist. 

At that age, Mickey didn’t know what the term _glowing_ meant when talking about another person. He didn’t know how a human being _could_ glow - except, well, when they’re a radioactive superhero like the ones he reads about in his comic books - but that wasn’t real life.

All he knew was that his mamma definitely wasn’t glowing. 

His mamma was the sad one. 

She was small and skinny - a lot younger than the other moms in his grade, though that was a fact he wouldn’t know until years later. 

Bruises would sometimes litter her arms, torso and face, dark purples and blues smattering her pale skin. 

Mickey didn’t know what they meant, but he’d kiss every single one of them. 

Mickey didn’t know a lot of things, but he knew she was his mamma and he _loved_ her. 

_“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray,_ ” His mother used to whisper as he gently kissed her skin. She’d sing it sometimes, but a whisper was safer. A whisper meant it was a secret between the two of them, _“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”_

“ _Please don’t take my sunshine away.”_ Mickey would finish, like he always did, with a kiss to the end of her nose and tucking himself into her side. Their secret. 

When they sang that song, they were safe together. 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away_. 

Mickey used to repeat the last line every single night, like a lullaby, a security blanket, rocking him gently to sleep. 

He was safe. 

Even when he’d fall asleep to raised voices, his mother’s cries and his father’s gruff, loud, violence. 

He was safe. 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

He was safe. 

More often than not, Terry angrily, drunkenly sometimes, proclaimed his dismay to his mom’s affection towards him. 

_He’s gettin’ too soft._

_You fuckin’ baby that kid._

_Gonna have to fuckin’ harden him up._

_Fuckin’ fairy shit._

_Useless. He’s gonna be fuckin’ useless._

She’d crawl into his bed an hour or so after the angry, angry shouting had died down and wrap him up in her arms. Mickey would pretend to be asleep, squeezing his eye shut tightly and trying very, very hard not to move a muscle - he didn’t want to get into trouble for being awake past his bedtime, and even though he knew his mamma would never rat him out, there was always already enough anger for one night. 

He’d soften into the warmth of his mother, she was safe, he was safe, and more often than not, be out like a light within minutes. 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

Soon after his 11th birthday, Terry decided that Mickey was _his_. 

His father pulled him up by the scruff of his collar and guns were pressed into his hands, ink into his skin, and slowly those soft, gentle moments with his mother ebbed away until they eventually ceased completely. 

They floated around one another, his mother drank more, took more, until she ebbed away too, slipping deeper and deeper into the fabric of the couch where she took up a permanent residence. 

She became a ghost. 

A hollow, muted ghost who drifted between rooms, only heard to when spoken to and very rarely seen. Terry snuffed her out like a candle.

And Mickey just… let him. 

In hindsight, he knew there wasn’t anything he could do. 

His father took him under his wing and set him on a path of self destruction. It was like a fatal poison, his father’s influence, and it was only because of Ian, and the eclipsing love Mickey felt towards him, that he somehow discovered the antidote. 

Ian’s thin, pale fingers wrapped around Mickey’s wrist and dragged him to the surface, and Mickey gulped in fresh air for the first time in years. 

His mother never found the antidote. 

His mother never drank in the fresh air.

Then she left. Walked out, Terry said. No forwarding address, No goodbyes. 

Mickey doesn’t remember the last time he spoke to his mother, prior _to-_

Then. 

The letter came whilst he was at juvie. 

_We’re sorry to inform you that your mother, Laura Milkovich, has passed_. 

He hid it under his pillow. 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

* * *

“I went to see her.” Mickey whispers later that night, his throat tight as he swallows, his nerves dancing in his stomach. Ian drops his hand from where it had been stroking his arm gently and sits up on his elbows, his face drawn and instantly concerned. 

“What?” He says, his eyebrows knitted. His expression makes Mickey feel like shit, the guilt sitting low in his stomach, he hates worrying him. It’s not good for his stress levels. His breath falls out of his mouth in a heavy sigh. 

“Fuck, I know,” Mickey drags a hand through his hair, and Ian catches it on it’s way back down, their fingers intertwining. Gentle, softly, “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you- I just…”

“You don’t have to go through this shit alone, Mick,” Ian says, rubbing a slow thumb over Mickey’s wedding band. “I’m here.”

Mickey squeezes his eyes shut, “I know that, _fuck_ , I do,”’ He says, opening them and catching Ian’s eye. He holds the gaze, he needs Ian to hear him, “I hear you.” 

Ian’s mouth twitches and looks like he doesn’t believe him, perhaps, but he doesn’t press any further and Mickey’s grateful. He can’t deal with an argument about _them_ on top of this. 

All of this sudden shit. 

This shit he thought he’d never, ever, fucking deal with. 

Because who the fuck comes back to life? 

He presses their joined hands to his eyes and swallows heavily. For the second time today, the urge to rant bubbles on low, the anger, the frustration. The disappointment of it all. He feels it crawling up his throat and the sudden urge to vomit is overwhelming. 

He needs to talk. He needs to at least let some of it out fall out because otherwise, he feels like he may literally _explode_ into a fucking thousand pieces and leave Ian behind nothing but a fractured puzzle. 

Mickey drops their hands and positions himself down onto Ian’s chest, the rise and fall of Ian’s breath comforting him. He’s alive, he’s here, he’s got him. 

He takes a second. Breathes. 

This is the first time he’s properly approached this, his mother, with Ian. It’s big. He knows it, and Ian knows it. The air between them is heavy, but they’ve done heavy. They know heavy. 

“I…”

Ian’s breath hitches in his throat, Mickey can feel it, he knows he’s letting him take his time to find his footing, to navigate _this_. 

“I got out of juvie… and she was just gone, you know?” He whispers, his voice so quiet, so held. 

Ian hums, and cups the back of his head, cradling him almost. Mickey needs the comfort, the safety and he’s silently grateful for the care in Ian’s hold.

Ian needs it too. 

He breathes, and lets go.

“I… I couldn’t even remember what our last conversation was. And I was okay with that. She left us and then I got a letter and the cops came to me in juvie, sayin’ she died in a random fire. I couldn’t even be fuckin’ sad about it, dad didn’t give a _shit-_ why should I give a shit? She left us,” Mickey explains, the thoughts rattling off one after the other. Ian nods along, giving Mickey the space he needs to let things overflow and spill. “Now she’s fuckin’ back, how can she be fuckin’ back?”

“I dunno,” Ian says quietly, pressing his face into the top of Mickey’s head. “I dunno.”

“I shouldn't give a fuckin’ shit about her, I shouldn’t-”

“She’s your mom, Mick.”

“Fuckin’ know that,” Mickey snaps, he doesn’t need to be told it, he knows _that_. “Don’t-”

Ian shoves his shoulder, but his voice remains somewhat gentle, “Easy _asshole_ , I’m just sayin’, course it makes you feel like shit. Monica made me feel like shit, _cause_ she was my mom.”

Mickey huffs. He feels guilty for snapping, he’s always fuckin’ snapping, but everything feels just that little too much right now and he’s teetering on that edge. Snapping is all he can do. 

He breathes out, exhausted, “I just… don’t know why I should fuckin’ care about her. Yet I do.”

“Cause it’s fucked up.” Ian takes a second, then pulls Mickey tighter as he speaks, “She hurt you, that shit is hard to get over.”

Mickey knows Ian isn’t just talking about his own mother. 

Silence, coloured only by the sound of Mickey’s tight exhales and Ian skirts his fingers up and down his ribs as they rise and fall. 

Mickey doesn’t know when it happens, he just knows it does. He knows he wants it, he knows he needs it. Ian needs it too and they give it to each other, hearts broken but open for the taking. 

Ian presses him into the mattress and each touch is so gentle, and soft, and caring - _I’m here, I’ve got you_ \- but it’s all Mickey can do whilst they fuck, slowly, slowly, slowly, to not fall completely apart. 

* * *

Ian wakes him with a mug of black coffee the next morning just after 10am. It’s a Tuesday, the day their schedules align and they both miraculously get the day off work at the same time (which usually involves them getting _off_ at the same time, really), but today is different. 

Mickey’s pulled from a restless, though thankfully dreamless, sleep. 

“Can you come do something for me?” Ian asks softly, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand rests gently on Mickey’s elbow. 

On any other day, Mickey would find a snarky comment to throw back - _why the fuck are you creepin’ on me, weirdo_ or _can’t a guy get some more fuckin’ sleep_ \- but his bones, his heart, his head are all _too_ heavy and there’s a look in Ian’s eye that makes him bite his tongue. 

“Uh, sure.” Mickey says instead, shuffling himself awkwardly up into a seated position. Ian smiles, it’s small and a little sad but soft around the edges. 

It’s beautiful and the only thing keeping Mickey from rolling over, shutting his eyes and going back to sleep. 

Shutting the whole fuckin’ world out. 

“Get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs.” He murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to his hairline and leaving, placing the steaming mug of coffee on the side before he goes. 

Mickey swallows the coffee down in two gulps, it’s still hot, but not enough to burn in his haste. 

The caffeine is needed and welcomed with open arms. 

He showers quickly, letting the hot water soothe his stiff limbs and wake his body up, scrubbing himself down some of Debbie’s leftover nice smelling shit she left behind in the shower. 

When he gets downstairs, Ian greets him with a hip bump and a plate of freshly buttered toast.

It’s domestic, overly so, almost.

They’re not usually this _doting_ , housewife-esque, Mickey guesses, with one another. That’s the _unrealistic-nuclear-family_ Northside way of doing things. But, perhaps they should be, because fresh toast and coffee at his bedside is something he can get used to. 

Except, Mickey knows this morning _means_ something. He can tell. He knows Ian’s nervous, formal, energy is down to something. 

“You good if we go out somewhere today?” Ian asks after a second, dropping into the chair next to him at the table. His voice is garbled slightly by the toast he’s scarfing down, but there’s something nervous underneath. “Lip said we could borrow Tami’s car.”

Mickey drops his toast onto his plate and wipes his buttery fingers on his jeans as he asks, “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes roll, “Yeah, _okay_.”

Ian just shrugs, and finishes his breakfast in two bites. 

They don’t travel for too long, but Mickey closes his eyes and lets his forehead rest against the window as Ian drives. It’s strangely peaceful, with the radio on low and the ac blasting. They don’t feel the need to talk, the comfortable silence of years between them fills the space enough. They could be driving anywhere - far, far, far, but they’re not, they’re driving _somewhere_ and when Ian pulls up outside a large green area, Mickey’s stomach churns when his eyes pick up on the rows and rows of grey, granite headstones.

Mickey wants to throw out a _what the fuck, Gallagher?_ or _you dragged me out of bed for this?_

But he doesn’t. 

He swallows. 

Neither one of them say anything for a few minutes, the comfortable silence no longer resting easily. It’s grating. 

Ian’s silent when he un-clicks his belt and climbs out of the driver’s seat. Mickey quickly follows, not wanting to be caught up in the weird, nervous energy they’re leaving behind in the parked car. 

Cemeteries creep him out a little - he’s never spent a huge amount of time in them, no reason to except from the couple of evenings he spent smoking weed in one with his cousins between his various stints in juvie. It’s a good place to store coke apparently, according to Colin. 

This one looks less like a scene from a shitty scary movie and pretty...quaint actually. 

Mickey doesn’t think he’s used _quaint_ before in his fucking life. 

But the trees, the sun, the small smatterings of flowers. 

It’s pretty quaint. 

“You comin’?” Ian says, twisted slightly towards Mickey, his lips in a thin straight line but his hand held out towards him. 

Mickey nods and picks up his pace to walk beside him, his hand meeting his. They go slowly through rows and rows of the dead, keeping themselves well onto the path away from the actual graves. 

“These places wigs me the fuck out.” Mickey mutters, the anxious pounding in his chest getting the better of him.

It takes them a minute or so before Ian stops abruptly and he walks right into his shoulder at the sudden pause. A routine _what the fuck_ burns at the tip of his tongue, though swallowed down quickly when Mickey sees _it_. 

And suddenly, everything about this _weird_ weird morning all makes sense. 

Monica’s grave. 

Ian looks at him, almost sheepishly, then wipes his hands on his jeans in a _well, here goes nothing_ kind of fashion and he drops down to a squat in front of the stone. 

“Hi Mom,” Ian says quietly - hesitantly, almost - as if he’s embarrassed about talking to the grave of his _actually_ dead mother. The whole sudden change in energy makes Mickey shift from foot to foot and it feels a little awkward but he doesn’t want Ian to be embarrassed about this, out of all things. 

Sure, it’s a little strange and Mickey’s not entirely sure of the point Ian’s trying to make here - but clearly he’s trying to say _something_ with it all. 

Ian’s fingers tug on his jacket’s cuff and he mumbles a quick, “Get down ‘ere.”

He looks down at Ian, Ian whose face is so open and vulnerable, turned up towards him and wants to say _I'm good_ _where I am,_ wants to walk away and get back into the car, drive home and get back into bed. He feels out of his depth, but his husband’s eyes are wet and he _knows_ that this is a bigger deal than Ian’s making it out to be. 

A much bigger deal. 

“Okay.” He mumbles and lets himself be pulled down to meet Ian at the same level. His knees click - he’s getting fucking _old_ \- but he finds a position that’s comfortable, at least for now. 

As comfortable as he can be. 

“How you doin’, mom,”’ Ian says with more conviction in his tone than before and he leans forward, letting his fingers trace the letters _Monica Darrgen Gallagher_ set into the stone. The ground is uneven - Mickey’s heard all about the meth escapade - and there’s a shoddy job of restoring the crack in the upper right hand corner, but the grave mostly looks okay, albeit neglected slightly. There’s some dead flowers at the foot of it but other than that, there’s no momentos, no remembrance. 

“Been a while… it’s been, a little insane,” Ian says, following with a quiet, low chuckle. Shyly, slowly, “Shit has happened. Dunno why this has taken so long. You never got to meet him… but this is Mickey. Remember him?...Well, uh, we’re married now,” He blows out a breath and let’s it trail off into the soft curved corners of his mouth, “I wish. I wish you could’ve been there. Would’ve loved it. You should’ve met him. He’s really fuckin’ important to me.”

Ian’s fingers find his and he squeezes his hand tightly. Mickey squeezes back. 

“We’ve been through some tough shit, but-” Ian looks at him, his head twisted ever so in his direction, and his gentle, sad smile makes something low in Mickey’s gut ache. “He’s, uh, he’s always been here.”

He nudges Mickey in the ribs, then tips his forehead towards the headstone. 

“Meet… Monica.”

Mickey looks between the stone and Ian for a second, then feels a little ridiculous, a little vulnerable, a little afraid, when he shrugs out a held, “Hi.”

Mickey never met Monica. Their paths never really, for lack of a better word, crossed. He’s seen her before, but that was before Ian was _his_ Ian and his position in the Gallagher family became more than just a Milkovich hanging around without paying rent. She wasn’t around a lot, he knows that much. He can probably count the number of times he’s seen her in person; at the Alibi, picking up one of the kids from school, around various spots in the neighbourhood, on one hand.

Then one day, much like his mother did - or so he always thought - Monica left, leaving a drunk father and six helpless kids behind. 

Then one day, a day not so differently to the one she left on, Monica would be back. Ian’s described her to him in the past like a hurricane. She’d storm back into the Gallagher kids’ lives with thunderous lighting, the rumbling chaos of what it was like to be loved by Monica Gallagher.

Monica wasn’t a constant. She wasn’t someone anyone could rely on. But in the middle of it, in the eye of the swirling storm, was the love for her children. 

Monica loved her kids. But sometimes, love isn’t enough. 

Mickey knows that. 

Ian knows that.

Everyone knows _that_. 

He knows that she suffered from the same mental illness that Ian has - that she’s probably, most definitely, is where he got it from. Shitty inherited genes and all that.

It was the luck of the draw and Ian was the percentage. The statistic. 

He knows that’s what pushed Ian over the edge all those years ago. Their likeness. Her ability to fly through his life, hold him close for dear, dear moments, then let him go without a care in the world, only to turn up months later and do it all over again. 

_You can’t fix me._

She hurt those she loved the most, so why wouldn’t he be the same? 

_You don’t owe me anything_. 

He knows that Ian’s terrified of becoming his mother - terrified with the same, low, gut twisting fear he has of himself falling into his father’s footsteps.

On some of Ian’s lowest days, those heavy, heavy, days when Mickey knows how difficult it is for Ian to pull himself out of bed, eat breakfast, shower - he’s heard Ian mumble to Lip and his other siblings, _not Monica_. 

If Monica Gallagher was a hurricane, then Laura Milkovich was - _is_ \- the early morning drizzle against a window on a cold spring morning. She is the light dusting of snow that melts as quickly as it falls. 

She is the autumnal wind howling through empty, abandoned rooms. 

The autumnal wind howling through his empty, abandoned years without her. 

His mother is a little bit of everything and yet, nothing at all. 

He lets Ian talk uninterrupted to Monica, chattering about nonsensical stuff, work, homelife, Mickey, and his eyes wander to the trees, the birds and the sky. Eventually their knees ache, and they give into the urge to fall back on their asses, settling in comfortably in a way they should’ve been sitting all along. 

The ground is dry and the grass is a yellow tinge from the summer’s lack of rain. Ian stops talking after a while and they fall into a comfortable silence, Ian’s head leant ever so slightly into the curve of Mickey’s neck. 

They breathe. 

“Mom was one of the first people to know about you, y’know.” 

“What?”

Ian says quietly, it’s airy and a little sad, “Yeah.”

He continues, waving his hand as he explains, “When, y’know, Frank caught us fuckin’ that time and you wanted to kill him-” He grins at Mickey and it’s a sparkle of the youthful kid behind the register at the Kash and Grab. A sparkle of the youthful kid Mickey fell in love with, “You were _so_ fuckin’ pissed-”

“Had the right to be, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Ian rubs his palms on his jeans, thinks for a second, “Guess you were right, though, cause he told Monica.”

Mickey smirks, because he can now, he can smirk at those moments from his past that had him teetering on the edge of self destruction - but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember those feelings well. He remembers the low, burning fears in his gut, fears that even Ian couldn’t really comprehend.

Fears that would later all play out to be true. 

The decision to go back to juvie rather than face the consequences of Frank’s loose mouth was an easy one. 

“She didn’t know it was you, like, _Mickey Milkovich_ , but-” Ian shuffles himself closer into Mickey’s side, “She knew what you meant to me then.”

Ian’s confession washes over him, though it comes as less of a shock than he would’ve thought it should, more of an unbalance, almost. The past he knew being shifted slightly to the left. 

The feeling that some else knew his deepest, darkest secret at the age of 16 and the world didn’t stop spinning.

Didn’t stop turning. 

Didn’t end. 

A low, ache of jealousy sets itself into his bones as Mickey thinks. 

Thinks about what would’ve happened had his mom been around that summer. 

Thinks about what would’ve happened had he come to her, his hands cradling his deepest, darkest secret, and releasing it into her world like a butterfly with a broken wing. 

Would it have taken flight? Or fallen, failing miserably to the ground? 

Would shit still have turned out the same? _Svetlana, prison, Mexico_ …

It’s painful, almost, to think about and Mickey squeezes his eyes shut. 

“Don’t even know what the fuck mom would’ve said if I had told her,” 

It falls out before Mickey can stop it and Ian throws an arm around Mickey’s shoulders. 

“Not that it would’ve mattered.” He finishes, his eyes trace the _Monica Darrgen Gallagher_ and his father’s name sits stale on his tongue. 

It doesn’t need to be said. 

Terry wouldn’t have let anything go another way. 

Ian’s free hand finds his and he gives it a tight squeeze. It’s a pulse of, _we’re here_ , _we made it._

_Til death do us part._

Terry couldn’t change that. 

They sit in silence surrounded by headstones and the buried dead, and breathe. 

* * *

That evening he and Sandy smoke a joint out on the back step whilst Ian puts the kids to bed. Mickey picks at leftover cold pizza between puffs and she tells him about a girl she’s been seeing, or something - he’s not really been paying attention. 

He lets the weed fill his lungs and thinks about headstones. Ian’s hair colour in the afternoon sun. The bag of chips they bought and shared on the ride home. 

Sandy stubs out the joint and turns to him. 

“Your mom was always nice to me.” 

Mickey doesn’t say anything but looks at her in acknowledgment, and even though it’s the first time Sandy’s brought up his mother’s return, the statement doesn’t take him by surprise. He’s been thinking about her enough today as it is.

“I hated going to your house as a kid. Hated it,” She says, her face a picture of disgust before it morphs into something softer as she reminisces, “But your mom? She was nice to me. Gave me, _ha_. An old lipstick once, thought it was the most grown up thing ever.” 

Other than holiday visits, Sandy would get dropped round sometimes on days when her parents were off on official Milkovich family business when they were really young. His mom would often be the only other person left behind and before things got _bad,_ those days were _good_. 

They would have fun. His mother would laugh. 

“She used to make us pie.” 

Mickey speaks without realising he does. He doesn’t know where the memory comes from - he hasn’t thought about her pie in years. Her hands in the flour, the fruit, the dusted sugar on top. 

She stopped making it a few years before she left. When she started to disappear. 

Sandy snorts humourlessly, “It was probably the only real food we ate back then.” 

“Yeah.” 

“She used to take care of us,” Mickey looks out into the backyard whilst Sandy speaks. 

There’s a light on in Lip and Tami’s trailer and wonders briefly if Tami will be the type of mother to make her kids pie. There’s been an issue with the plumbing in the house that Lip renovated for them, so they’ve been hanging back around in the trailer for the last few days. 

“Having her back is.” She swallows, then says carefully, “Fucked up. You spoken to Mandy?” 

Mickey shakes his head and makes a negative sound at the back of his throat. 

“Doesn’t wanna talk about it.” 

He hasn’t pressed the issue with her since his first attempt at a phone call and he knows he won’t make another. 

“Figures,” She says with raised eyebrows, looking like she wants to continue her thought but it takes her a moment before she does. Then she says, “You could give her a chance.” 

“Mandy?” He looks at her, a little confused. Sandy never particularly cared for her other cousin, they clashed personality wise and it was easier for everyone involved when they were kept separate. 

“Don’t be an idiot.” She says, though there's no malice behind the eye roll she pairs it with. Then, leans into his side, dropping her voice and sounding more serious than she has done in weeks. “Your mom.” 

He looks at her, holding her gaze for a moment then down to his hands. 

There’s the sound of one of the kids crying on the floor above. Franny, probably.

Something stirs in his gut. He thinks about his mother, his childhood and pie, and the inked _FUCK-U UP_ on his knuckles seem more defined than ever.

* * *

Mickey’s knee wants to bounce with the impatient, agitated energy thrumming through him, but he stops himself, keeping his foot planted firmly on the ground. He’s calm, he’s keeping his shit together, he’s chill and maybe if he keeps repeating it to himself, it’ll actually be true. 

“She’s late,” He says, his eyes glancing at the clock face on the wall across the room, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can’t believe we’re doin’ this.” 

Mickey doesn’t know what the fuck to expect. 

“Chill out,” Ian whispers, and it does nothing to calm his quickened, thumping heart. “You wanted to do this, remember?” 

“Stupid idea.” 

This is going to be a shitshow. 

“Yeah, well. We’re here now.” 

There’s a lull in the diner’s conversation volume so they both hear it clearly when Patsy’s door opens with a clatter and there she _is_. 

Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. 

So fucking alive. 

“Here we go.” Mickey says through gritted teeth, and it’s all he can say because he still doesn’t know if he wants to do this or not. 

But he has to. 

His mother’s eyes land on them and Mickey sucks in a deep, centring breath. There’s no turning back now. 

Laura walks over to them, her steps small and self conscious. When she gets to the end of the table she hesitates, the nervous energy ebbing off her as she smiles politely, shifting her weight from foot to foot. 

Mickey wonders if her stomach is hurting as much as his is. 

“Mickey.” 

Laura’s voice is warm, it’s an echo from those days on the couch with kisses and a whispered song. “Thank you. For you know, seeing me…” 

Mickey doesn’t respond and her small glimmer of hope distorts slightly in a drop of the corners of her mouth, and she pauses for a moment before turning to Ian, gesturing to herself, “Sorry, _Laura_. You must be-”

“Ian.” He shifts forward to shake her outstretched hand and Mickey can hear the controlled edge in his voice, and a friendly, though tight smile sits on his face. It does nothing to hide the weariness behind his eyes and the fingers on his free hand skirt along the cuff of Mickey’s jacket. 

Her eyes flicker between them, “And you’re-” 

“Married, yeah.” Ian finishes, bringing his left hand to rest on the table top, the wedding band on his finger making a stark _clack_ when he sets it down. 

She nods, her smile growing wider as her gaze shifts down to the band and then back up to their faces. 

“Wow, that’s- just, _wow_. I can’t believe...”

There’s a sense of pride in her voice - genuine happiness, perhaps. 

Look at what I’ve done _,_ Mickey thinks, look at what I have _done_. 

Silence. Patsy’s is busy with most tables being occupied, so there’s a cacophony of noise and people around them, but it’s awkward. 

Laura opens her mouth to start something, to apologise, to beg, to laugh - Mickey doesn’t know what, because a pulse of energy surges through him and for the first time since she arrived, he finally, _finally_ finds his voice. 

His breath comes out in a short, defeated puff. 

“Dunno what you want me to say, mom.” 

Her lips part for a moment, shocked slightly, but her voice is steady when she speaks. “You don’t… you don’t have to say anything.”

“Okay.” He moves his gaze out of the window. There’s a young mother outside on the sidewalk pushing her kid in a stroller. The kid is smiling and he watches as the mother bends down to check on her child and shake something playfully in their face. 

Mickey has to look away, feeling like an idiot for even thinking like this was remotely a good idea. 

Laura breaks in with a careful, “I mean it… how about, how about we start slow?” 

The suggestion makes him want to roll his eyes. Take it _slow_. Slow. 

“What?” He says, shaking his head in disbelief. Disbelief that she can just… call the shots here. 

Mickey needed her to call the shots years ago. This is on his terms now. 

He watches as she fiddles with a napkin’s edge for a second, ripping carefully at the thin, cheap paper. It’s something Mandy always used to do too - the need to keep your hands busy, to tear things apart just because you _can_ \- and for the first time during this whole ordeal he wishes Mandy was there with him. 

She’s stalling, Mickey can tell. 

“You...” The shredded napkin falls to the table and when she looks at him, Mickey can _see_ Mandy in her. See himself. See the age in her skin from the years she wasn’t there. “Like… you could start by telling me about you two.” 

Mickey’s caught off guard by a sudden overwhelming feeling of being strangled. Moving on and discussing the two of them like it’s a casual conversation - like filling in the years they’ve been apart is _normal_ \- crawls up his throat and threatens to suffocate. A bitter retort sits readily on his tongue but like he can sense it, Ian kicks him under the table and rallies forward. 

“We’ve been married a little over a year, I think-” Ian says, hooking Mickey’s ankle firmly between his feet. 

_Calm. Down._ He’s saying and Mickey hears it, but how the _fuck_ can he be calm? 

Hot, angry breath falls out of his nose. He’s close. So close. 

Laura’s face softens, it’s a small but genuine movement, it makes him _ache._

She looks at him, awe inspired almost, “A year? Mickey, that’s, that’s just-”

But he can’t fucking do _this_. 

“Did you know I went to prison, mom? _Twice_?” Mickey spits, elbowing Ian back in the ribs and Ian releases his ankle with a yelp. Laura’s face _drops_ at his words and Mickey glares whilst she splutters, her mouth moving silently to find something, anything, to say. 

“I didn’t-”

He keeps going, keeping it low, keeping it snappy, keeping it devastated, “What about me in Mexico - you know that?” 

“ _Mick_.” Ian says firmly, but he’s had enough. Enough for now. 

“I need a fuckin’ smoke.” Mickey grunts and he pushes himself clumsily out of the booth. His eyes sting, he needs to _breathe_ and he pushes Patsy’s door open forcefully, stumbling out onto the sidewalk. His fingers shake as he pulls out a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lights it, ducking around the side so he’s out of view of the diner’s windows. 

Mickey brings the cigarette up to his lips and inhales, cradling it between his fingers as it’s the only thing keeping him together right now. A low wave of guilt floods his gut from leaving Ian behind with his- _mother_ , but even that couldn’t sway him to stay. 

He doesn’t know where to even begin with Laura. His mother. 

His mamma. 

How is he supposed to tell someone he once loved _so_ much that they let him down when he needed them the most. That their bond is permanently severed and frayed in ways that can’t be repaired or erased. He can’t just… stitch years of _loss_ back together now that she is alive and back in town. That’s not how it works, that’s not how any of it works. 

Ian fucked him up. Ian fucked him up _royally._

But with Ian, there was never the loss of _life_. 

Even in Mexico, lonely and fucking _heartbroken_ , he knew that Ian was okay. Saying goodbye at that border meant that though they both thought they’d never see each other again, there was the smallest, smallest possibility that maybe they _could_ 20 years down the line or so _._

He knew that Ian was still walking, breathing, sleeping, _fucking_ \- 

He knew, that even though Mickey felt _dead_ inside, Ian was still alive. 

Still so fucking alive. 

Ian being alive meant a part of him, the part of himself that he chiselled off over time and handed over to Ian as a teenager, was with him always. Alive always. 

Walking, breathing, sleeping, fucking always. 

That’s what Mickey held onto.

Yet with his mother… 

There’s so much more to unpack than Mickey ever thought. 

He didn’t think about her a lot after she died, and that’s maybe where some of his issues lie. In the guilt. In his belief in his father’s word. 

There was no space for it in his life. He mourned her silently. Silent tears, silent grief, silent longing behind his closed bedroom door - _keep the fuck out_ \- for a day or so once he was out of juvie and then, the betrayal set in. Slowly, seeping into his bones. The betrayal that she left them willingly with their father - a man she knew harboured no love in his heart, not even for his own fucking kids.

She’d left them willingly and wound up dead. 

He exhales. 

“Mick?”

He looks up and Ian’s standing a foot away, his light, his fuckin’ life, and Mickey wordlessly holds the cigarette out to him. 

“Yeah.” 

“You comin’ back inside?” Ian says, accepting the smoke between two thin fingers. 

“Dunno.”

Ian nods out of the corner of his eye and Mickey watches him inhale and exhale slowly, _thinking,_ and Mickey knows he’s trying to figure out a way to broach this, how to ease his way in. 

“What do you wanna do here?” Ian says after a second, flicking ash down onto the ground, “If you wanna go, we’ll go.”

He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes.

He doesn’t know what he wants. 

“Just say the word, Mick. Then we’ll go.”

“Don’t know what I fuckin’ want.” 

"Okay. Then let’s just…" He stubs the cigarette out against the wall in a calm, controlled motion and puts a hand on Mickey’s shoulder, he _squeezes_ , “Go back inside and have a cup of coffee.”

Mickey looks at him and thinks about shaking him off and leaving, going back home by himself. 

Running. 

Running from his mother, from his husband, from _everything_ that’s dug itself up from inside of him after years and years. 

But he stops. 

He can’t run. He doesn’t run. 

That’s not him anymore. 

_Fuck_. 

He runs a hand down his face and sighs, “Okay.”

“Yeah?” The corners of Ian’s mouth twitch upwards, it’s a small, small achievement and Mickey knows it. 

“Yeah.” He breathes, letting his shoulders drop and Ian’s hand slips down his arm and hangs for a second at his wrist before dropping down completely at his side. 

They walk back into Patsy’s slowly, Mickey swallowing down the feeling of walking back with his tail between his legs when he pushes open the door - because _fuck_ , he refuses to be made to feel embarrassed over this, over needing space. This is on his terms. 

He feels the telltale creep of a blush up his neck anyways. 

Laura’s head shoots up when the door clangs open, the blind rattling against the window signalling their entrance. She watches as they walk towards her, eyes glassy and regretful. 

He slides into the booth, shoving himself up against the window wordlessly and Ian slips in next to him. 

“I…” Laura starts but her voice trails off with uncertainty. 

“Should we order?” Ian says with a false cheeriness that grinds unfairly into Mickey’s bones. It’s not his fault. None of this is his fault. 

The urge to snap is right under his skin. 

His husband is ever the mediator, ever the carer, ever the saviour - and Mickey loves it usually. 

Usually, his heart sings with a quiet march of pride when he watches Ian morph into his _I must protect, I must lead_ mode - but right now, all Mickey can do is chew the inside of his mouth to stop himself from vomiting biting insults. 

Ian squeezes his thigh, “You wanna order?” He whispers. 

Mickey nods reluctantly and Ian gives him a strained, _I’m trying_ , look. His mother is pointedly looking elsewhere out of the window. 

Mickey casts his eyes down to his tattooed hands and flattens them out on the table, carefully controlling the motion as he lets his fingers splay out against the plastic. He breathes. 

Ian flags down a waitress - she’s a new girl luckily, rather than one of the regulars who knows them personally. They skip the awkward niceties and mumble out their orders one by one. 

She leaves, gathering up the rest of their menus and heading back towards the counter to relay them to the kitchen, leaving behind an awkward, thick silence. 

Ian’s the one who breaks it, sucking in a deep breath and shifting in his seat. 

“My sister used to be the boss here, actually-” Ian says, catching Laura’s eye with a sheepish expression, “That’s, uh, why we come regularly. She’s not here now though…doesn’t live in Chicago anymore.”

Laura takes a moment to respond, but the corners of her lips quirk upwards and responds warmly and with genuine interest, “Where does she live now?”

Ian pulls a face, pondering for a moment before continuing. “Think… She's down in Florida right now? She’s been movin’ about a lot in the last year. A little hard to keep track,” There’s a tinge of sadness in his tone - only noticeable to Mickey or perhaps Lip. if he were here - but it colours his words gloomily, “Makin’ up for lost time from her being stuck here for most of her life… Couldn’t make it to the wedding."

“I’m sure she was happy for the two of you.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Spoke on the phone.” 

Laura asks another few questions about Fiona and the rest of Ian’s family - _his_ family, he guesses - and Mickey zones out for most of the conversation, keeping his eyes fixated on the light fixture about his mother’s head, willing the pounding to stop in his. 

There’s a surrealism to the situation he wasn’t quite expecting. Ian and his mother talking, discussing his family and the life he leads now. The two of them had always existed separately for him - his mother, his childhood home and his father were all wrapped up in the same web. Ian had been his respite. The freedom that pulled him from that web, and for the brief period where Ian and his mother had existed in his life at the same time, Mickey kept them apart. 

There was never a moment he thought, or even toyed with the idea, that those two paths would cross. Yet, here they sit years later and Mickey’s head spins.

Spins with the idea that _this_ could be his life. Be in his future. 

If he lets it. If he _can_. 

Mickey thinks about the hours he spent falling asleep at juvie, staring at the pale gray ceiling from his bunk and hoping with every passing minute that she would be there to visit him tomorrow. 

But she never did, because she was gone. And then, the letter arrived and she was _dead._

He’s pulled back by the three filter coffees they ordered being placed in front of them, catching the tail end of Ian’s explanation about Debbie and Franny. 

“-so yeah, the house has always been filled with kids, I guess...” 

Laura brings hers up to her mouth and takes a sip as she listens, before placing the mug down and sliding a hand across to Mickey. Her fingertips the edge of his thumb. It burns. It soothes.

She’s here now, she’s here and she is _alive_. 

“Your family sounds lovely. I’m… I’m glad you have them. You deserve it, Mickey.” 

There’s something about the way she says those words, something that reminds him of the way she would speak to him in hushed tones in the dark. 

I wish I had you, he wants to say, I wish you were there. 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

He has to know. He has to. 

“Tell me.” Mickey says, rubbing at his nose. If he’s going to do this, he _needs_ to know. 

Her gentle smile falls into something sadder. 

“What happened,” He clarifies, looking out of the window, then deciding against it and turning back, squaring himself. His voice is steady, he’s gotta keep calm. “Whatever happened. I want to know-”

Ian sucks in a breath at his side. 

Laura looks at him, conflicted, “Mick-”

The shift in energy from the previous conversation hits them all like a brick - the curtain falling on whatever pretences they had lulled themselves into. This is why they’re here. His terms.

“Tell me,” Mickey says, jaw clenched. He stutters out a breath and Ian’s hand comes down onto his thigh, steadying, “Just tell me how you did it.”

“I...okay.” She breathes, and closes her eyes slowly before opening them again, “You sure?”

He nods. 

“Okay.” She starts with a wary and hesitant edge in her voice that makes Mickey’s fists curl. He’s done with hesitating, done with time wasting. He needs answers. 

When she doesn’t immediately start up again, impatience digs under his skin, “You gonna fuckin’ go or what-”

“Yeah, um. Well,”’ She swallows, biding her time. Laura drops her volume, as if to stop anyone else from over hearing, “Your dad. You. You know what your dad was like-”

“Cut that crap, _”_ Mickey groans with a wave of his hand. He continues, his voice dripping with bitterness, “Don’t give me the _Terry was an evil prick_ , we all fuckin’ know that. No more bullshit.” 

“Okay, okay, okay,” She says, desperately rubbing at her eyes with the palm of her hands and keeping them pressed against her face as she continues, “Being married to your dad was… it was hard.”

Mickey scoffs.

Laura takes a deep breath and looks at him seriously. 

“I shouldn’t have left you with him. I shouldn’t have, and I’ll be forever sorry that I did...”

“Just tell me how you did it, mom.” His voice is growing thin with exasperation, thin with years of questions he didn’t even know he needed answering, “Stop beatin’ this shit around the bush- just tell me.”

His mother looks at him for a moment, and after a painful silence broken only by the chatter of other Patsy’s patrons, she continues. Her voice is a low whisper, but it’s clearer than he’s heard it in years. There’s a confidence, maybe, or a truth that hadn’t been present before. 

A truth he’s been waiting for. 

“I met a guy.”

“ _Okay_.”

“And he helped me. First it was just the drugs, you know. Getting out of the house. Then...” Her eyes flicker to the tabletop then back up and Mickey shifts in his seat uncomfortably, remembering the evenings where his mother wasn’t anywhere to be found. “Terry didn’t know about him, obviously, and then, _fuck_. I still don’t know how he found out, who told him. He was mad, one of those _rampages._ I’d never seen him so… thought he was gonna kill me when he found out.”

There’s a clattering of plates behind them and voices rise in dealing with the commotion. Laura’s voice is so quiet as she speaks, but Mickey doesn’t need to strain to hear her. 

“That was the night I left.” 

It hangs in the air between them, heavy and weighted. 

There’s heartbreak in her words. Years and years of regret in each syllable. Mickey can hear it and he knows Ian can too. 

He remembers the night she left. He remembers the noise, destruction so forceful he thought the ceiling was going to cave in on them. He remembers the way the walls shook when his mother slammed the door. The sound of the car’s engine kicking into action and her taking off down the street. 

It was one of those hot summer evenings a few months before the shit went down with Frank and Mickey had ended up in juvie again.

Whilst his father tore the house down and screamed at the top of his lungs, Mickey slipped out the window in his bedroom and headed towards the lot of abandoned buildings he frequented as a teenager. He texted Ian on the way and stole a six-pack of beer from a corner store, shoving it under a sweaty arm without care.

They drank, they smoked, they fucked. 

Mickey didn’t think about his mother, his father, or the fact his skin burned like it was on fire every single time he looked at Ian for a moment too long. 

It was a regular night for them that summer. 

And when he got home, his mother hadn’t returned. 

His mother wouldn’t return. 

It occurs to him now, thinking about that evening, listening to his mother’s explanation and watching the way her hands clench around her china white mug, that he’s never told Ian this. 

That he doesn’t know that Mickey had run to him with nowhere else to go in the very same way Ian had the year before. 

_I need to see you._

Laura continues, slamming him right back into Patsy’s from that hot summer night and Mickey can feel his heart beating in his throat. 

“I was staying on the other side of town. I was going to come back for you guys, I was.” Her eyes plead for understanding, for _anything_. “And Terry then turned up a week later, threatened to burn the place down. I knew he wasn’t going to give up. He wanted to kill me.” 

Mickey remembers the way his father yelled those first few days. The furniture he broke. The plates and glasses he smashed and ruined. All photos of his mother - the very few that were present in the house - were burned in a trash can in the yard. He cursed her, cursed _that bitch_. 

_If I ever fuckin’ see her_. 

They’re interrupted by the same waitress from before piling their orders onto their table. It’s an awkward moment where the heaviness of Laura’s confession seeps into their skin as plates are shifted around to make sure everything fits onto the table. 

The waitress tells them to enjoy their food and she’s sent on her way with a tight round of smiles and murmured thanks. 

Steam rises from their dishes but none of them move to touch their food. 

“How did you… pull off, y’know, the dead thing?” Ian asks after a painfully long pause, his voice tinged with genuine curiosity. He meets Mickey’s eye as he does so. 

Laura’s jaw drops an inch in surprise, almost as if she had expected Ian to sit there passively at Mickey’s side during this and it makes the corner of Mickey’s mouth pull into a smirk - she doesn’t know Ian at all. 

“I…” Her eyes pause on Ian for a moment before she looks down at the table, then back up to Mickey. This was _it_ . “We burned the place down, got in the car and drove. We just fucking _drove_. Didn’t stop until we hit Minneapolis. And that’s where I’ve been. Until now.” 

It takes a moment for the words to hit him, and once they do, the ground feels like it’s been pulled out from underneath him and Mickey can’t believe it. 

“You’ve been in fuckin’ Minneapolis this entire time?” 

400 and a handful of miles. 

On the worst days of his life his mother was 400 hundred and a handful miles away. 

Terry’s pistol against his cheek, Ian’s blood spilled between them, his mother was 400 and a handful miles away. 

Broken up with, shot at and arrested, his mother was 400 and a handful miles away. 

He sat in prison, alone and heartbroken, his mother was 400 hundred and a handful miles away. 

“Yes… I have.” 

“Why did you…” Ian starts but changes his mind halfway through the thought, “How did you know Terry died?” 

Something passes over Laura and it’s clear that the question pains her in a way, her eyes squeeze shut and it’s as if Mickey can see the cogs turning in her head as she figures out a way to phrase it. He turns his attention to the fork resting by his plate and runs it along the syrup dripping off his banana pancakes. 

He has no appetite. 

“I wanted to contact you so many times.” She says, her voice _devastated_ and Mickey forces himself to look at her in the eye and hold it there. “Uncle Ronnie… he knew where we were. He told me.” 

Another rug pulled - Uncle Ronnie knew, Figures. 

Ian asks the question sitting in the centre of Mickey’s chest and he’s grateful he does because Mickey doesn’t think he’d be able to stomach saying the words out loud. 

“Then why didn’t you?” 

“I…” Laura shifts uncomfortably and drops her eyes down to the table top. Then says simply, “I was scared.” 

Scared. 

Mickey wants to laugh, but he can’t. 

He’s done a lot of things because he was scared. 

He spent his entire life feeling scared. Until Ian. Until he let himself have Ian. 

Mickey remembers the nights buried under his comforter, his mother’s hand running through his hair, lulling him to sleep to the sounds of his father in the next room over. He was scared then, scared for the both of them. Scared for his sunshine. 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

Mickey knows what his mother had to do. Mickey’s _felt_ and did what his mother had to do. 

“Y’know I have a son?” 

He can’t help the way the question falls out, spilling out onto the table between them, because… that’s just the thing. After everything, after it _all_ , if there’s anything Mickey understands it’s the need for survival in Terry Milkovich’s world. Being scared. 

He pushed Ian away to survive. 

He got married to Svetlana to survive. 

He didn’t fight his father over Yevgeny to survive. 

But he was surviving, he wasn’t _living_ and that’s what Ian taught him. 

He can’t fuckin’ hate his mother for wanting to live because Mickey did the exact same thing. 

“ _Mick-_ ” 

“I’m sayin’ that somewhere in this fuckin’ world there’s a kid,” Mickey says, growing hoarse from the lump that is forming in his throat and Ian stiffens next to him at the mention. Yevgeny’s not been brought up in a long time, that period of their life being long over, but he’s got to say it. “Coulda been mine, coulda been Terry’s, we never fuckin’ knew...” 

His mother looks at him, rendered speechless by his confession and Ian edges forward at his side, the muscles in his jaw clenching like he’s like he wants to say something, but Mickey beats him to the punch. 

“Ian was… ” He swallows, then swipes at his nose. Think’s about the days years ago when Ian was his only flicker of hope. Steady. “Been there.” 

What would she have said to him had she been there all those years ago? What would’ve been the answer had Mickey come to her about Ian, about Svetlana, about Yevgeny? 

About being gay. Being dirty. Being different.

Mickey looks directly at his mother, holding her gaze with such intensity there can be no way she isn’t hearing what he is telling her. He needs her to hear him. 

He’s chosen Ian time and time again.

Over Terry, over Yevgeny, over hard fought for freedom in Mexico. 

Mickey knows he’s at a crossroads here. He breathes and looks at his mother.

In the light shining into the diner through the windows, he can see her properly for the first time without feeling clouded with anger and confusion. 

He’s still angry. He’s still confused. 

But it’s clearer. 

She looks healthier than he ever can remember from before. Her eyes aren’t tired and her skin isn’t weathered by years of addiction. Her laugh lines. The gray hairs. 

The evidence of life. 

His mother is so far removed from the woman he knew before. 

He _knows_ what it is like to live after so many years without freedom. 

“You clean?” He asks, because he has to. Because the 7 year old in him will never forget the afternoons she spent on the couch, thin bodied and disappearing in front of his eyes. 

The booze. The drugs. 

She nods, “Haven’t touched anything in years. I don’t even drink.” 

“Okay,” He rubs at his eyes. Mickey’s tired. He’s _so_ tired. “Okay.” 

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

She wipes at her eyes with the back of a knuckle.

 _“_ There’s no excuse, there never will be. I know that,” She admits. Then, his mother is leaning forward and there’s a hand coming down on top of his. Mickey waits, but the urge to flinch away never comes. Her tone is softer, warmer. It’s everything he remembers. “I missed you, Mikhailo.” 

Her words feel like an airplane landing on a runway, like a shoe fitting in a child’s fairytale, like entering the threshold of your home after years away. 

He doesn’t say _I missed you too_ \- he doesn’t know if he can. 

It’s not _I forgive you_. It’s not _I’m going to forget_. 

But it’s something. 

He can tell from her eyes and the way they pour into his that she can feel it, the words hanging unsaid but heard loud and clear. 

Ian breathes in deeply beside him, letting the moment between Mickey and his mother wash over them, and for the first time in the days since Laura returned Mickey doesn’t feel like he is drowning. 

He kicks against the current and breaks through the surface. 

“And you’re staying? In Chicago?” Mickey asks. 

Laura nods. 

“Okay.” 

Ian turns towards him and Laura’s voice is breathless when she speaks. 

“Okay?” 

He breathes out slowly, then drops his eyes to his plate. He can feel their eyes burning onto the top of his head, the air is thick and weighty as they wait for him to call the shots on the next move. 

Mickey got what he came for. His answer. Where and why. The starting moments of clarity. 

It’s not going to be forgiven or forgotten, but the rest can wait. 

For now, at least.

_Please don’t take my sunshine away._

“Let’s fuckin’ eat.” He mumbles, and without hesitation shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth.

* * *

Ian goes to the bathroom half an hour later, leaving Mickey, his mother and their empty plates behind. 

The pancakes were good - they always are - but they did little to settle his stomach. 

It’s silent and a little awkward between the two of them whilst Ian’s gone, and Mickey’s on the edge of giving up and going out for a cigarette when his mother speaks. 

“I’m proud of you, you know.” 

Her voice is gentle but direct, and Mickey looks up at her from his plate. 

“You’ve done all this,” Laura says, gesturing to him and nodding her head towards the bathroom door Ian just left through. “I… I should’ve been here, but _look_ at what you’ve done without me...” 

Mickey doesn’t know what to say - doesn't know what she _wants_ him to say. He’s exhausted, quite frankly. 

“Yeah.” 

“Ian’s lovely.”

 _Lovely_ makes him cringe a little - it’s so _not_ them, but Mickey can’t help the fond, breathless chuckle that falls out and surge of warmth that floods through him when he thinks of him. 

“Beats the time dad found out about him.” He says on an out breath. It’s supposed to be a joke but Mickey knows it’s a low blow and he feels a tinge of regret when hurt flashes across his mother’s face. “Sorry.” 

“You don’t have to apologise. It’s true,” She sighs, defeatedly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Guess I’ve got to get used to that.” 

Mickey twists his wedding ring around his finger and thinks. 

There were days sitting in prison the first time round when Ian had stopped visiting and Mickey had stopped counting the hours as they passed, where he toyed with the idea of never forgiving Ian. 

It was foolish and hardly even a fully formed thought - he knew if he dug down deep enough that it wouldn’t be true, wouldn’t be possible. But, he toyed with it.

Then, when he broke out and they found each other under those bleachers, forgiving Ian wasn’t even a question. Even at the border and _fuck you, Gallagher_ , he forgave him.

At the courthouse. In the bar with Ian kneeling on the sticky floor, _more than anything_ , and Byron knocked out to one side. 

Mickey forgave him. Mickey loved him through it all. 

Mickey can forgive his siblings and cousins for keeping their distance. He can’t fault them for something he’s guilty of too.

Mickey knows he’ll never forgive Terry. 

“You should…” He breathes, thinks. He can do this. Mumbles, “You should come round. Meet the kids.” 

The corners of his mother’s mouth curve up ever so slightly. 

Hope. 

Hope that Terry had tried so hard to extinguish. 

“I would really like that.” 

It’s a start. 

And when Ian slides back into his chair, wiping his wet hands on his jeans and picking up the conversation with Laura where they left off, Mickey knows it’s a beginning too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3 i hope you are all staying safe, wearing masks and keeping healthy. 
> 
> i'm not opposed to turning this into a verse - there are a couple more conversations that need to be had and there are situations i would like to explore with mickey having his mom back, but this isn't a promise! it's a big fat maybe!
> 
> anyways, find me on [ twitter](https://twitter.com/buzzcutian)/[ tumblr (fic) ](https://oforamuse.tumblr.com)/[ tumblr (main) ](https://matteoamiras.tumblr.com)


End file.
